Nominee Name/Nominee Company NameSocial Impact Award: Aqua Cultured Foods
Finalist for the:Social Impact Award
About the Nominee:Aqua Cultured Foods is dedicated to feeding the world more sustainably by focusing on its mission to offer nutrient-rich foods in the form of fungi-based seafood alternatives that will feed the next two billion people to be born on the planet, all while protecting the oceans from the detrimental impact of overfishing. We're creating the first "whole cut" fermentation-derived seafood alternatives. Our technology allows us to biomanufacture a sustainable seafood analog through the growth and fermentation of mycelium. Aqua Cultured Foods has developed novel protein fermentation technology that produces seafood alternatives with the appearance, texture, taste and nutritional content of conventional seafood -- and without microplastics, mercury, antibiotics, PCBs, parasites, or a high risk of foodborne illness.This technology can be leveraged across platforms to create different types of seafood including shrimp, calamari, sushi cuts and fish filet substitutes.
Why they should win:Aqua Cultured Foods is a food tech startup solving one of the planet's most intractable environmental problems: how to supply sustainable protein to a growing population without depleting our oceans and coastal regions-which are more important for mitigating climate change, and ensuring a livable planet, than even rainforests. Aqua's novel microbial fermentation technology uses only a fraction of the resources required by traditional aquaculture and delivers a highly realistic texture, taste, and appearance, considered a "holy grail" in alternative proteins.