The Good Food Institute (GFI) is funding a team of scientists to work with chefs at Copenhagen’s two Michelin-starred restaurant Alchemist to create a new seafood by growing fungi on seaweed.
“Seafood is an area where we urgently need to see innovation, and there are huge opportunities for companies and governments to invest”
The project, headed by Dr Leonie Jahn from the Technical University of Denmark and Diego Prado, head of research at Alchemist, will see the chefs experiment with fungi to eventually create whole-cut seafood by using the fungi to ferment seaweed. If successful, the product may be sold at the restaurant and could go on to be widely available for purchase.
Dr Leonie Johanna Jahn commented: “I think there’s huge potential here – there aren’t a lot of seafood alternatives on the market but there’s certainly a need for them. This is also an area that hasn’t really been explored before.”
Seren Kell, science and technology manager at the Good Food Institute Europe, said: “This is an incredibly exciting project which will explore innovative ways of using fungi to deliver the distinctive flavours and textures of seafood – using it to create whole-cut seafood, scaffolds to give structure to cultivated meat products, and finally developing its texture and fermenting seaweed to create an entirely new seafood product.
