The Future of Seafood is Female with Marissa Bronfman, Future Ocean Foods

Welcome back to Planet & Purpose—a bi-weekly LinkedIn Newsletter featuring professional insights and personal experiences from ocean and climate ecopreneurs, investors, and advocates brought to you by Daniela V. Fernandez , Founder & CEO of Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA).?

Today, I’m joined by Marissa Bronfman . If the name doesn’t ring a bell, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with this undeniable powerhouse taking the blue foods sector by storm. Marissa is the Founder & Executive Director of Future Ocean Foods (FOF), the world’s first alternative seafood association! Unveiled in November 2023, the association already has 36 startup members across 14 countries. Of those, 40% are (very intentionally) women-led.?

At SOA, 56% of grant projects and 46% of startup companies in our network are women-led. And, as the Co-Founder of Seabird Ventures , I am proud that 75% of our investments are led by women in the ocean innovation sector.

We’re doing our part to help turn the investment and funding tides to support and accelerate women-led solutions for our ocean and achieve scaled impact. In a world where only one in four C-suite positions are held by women, this synergy between Marissa and I felt like a perfect kick-off to International Women’s Month, beginning tomorrow.

In the following fascinating conversation, you will learn more about the sustainable seafood sector and the inspiring women behind the collaborative effort to sustainably shift the global seafood industry for good.

Daniela: Welcome to Planet & Purpose, Marissa!

Marissa: Thanks so much Daniela, I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to share more with your readers about Future Ocean Foods (FOF) and the alternative seafood sector. Where should we start?

Daniela: Let’s begin with what inspired you to found FOF? I personally love an inspiring backstory and I imagine readers may be curious why and how you went about doing this…

Marissa: It all started about a year ago when I was asked by a founder friend in the alternative seafood sector to host an event for impact investors, The Future of Seafood Is Vegan.

I had been in the plant-based sector for many years, and increasingly in food tech, but this event truly opened my eyes to the incredible opportunities in alternative seafood and the critical planetary problems that it can solve.

Unsurprisingly, I have to thank two incredible women for sparking that pivotal life event. Aki Kaltenbach , Founder & CEO of Save Da Sea (a founding FOF member), and Heather Courtney , Founding General Partner of Alwyn Capital .

Daniela: As a vegan myself for more than a decade, I couldn’t love this origin story more! After organizing that catalytic event, what came next?

Marissa: Coming out of the event, I realized that although other novel food organizations had recently formed, nothing had been established for alternative seafood—I didn’t know why. So I started asking people in the industry whom I was friendly with if a global organization like FOF would be interesting, impactful, and beneficial.?

Everyone I spoke to was incredibly enthusiastic and I knew this had to happen. As I deepened my connections in the industry, I brought on partners with incredible knowledge and networks to support us. About ten months after The Future of Seafood Is Vegan event, FOF launched with 36 member companies in 14 countries.

Daniela: As someone who built a network from the ground up, I know how much work that takes! It makes me so proud to see what you are accomplishing.

Now that you’ve done the hard work of gathering like-minded startups and innovative founders of all backgrounds, what is your collective mission?

Marissa: Our mission at FOF is multifaceted. One of our primary objectives is to promote knowledge sharing and a spirit of collaboration amongst members. Despite being a brand new (3-month-old) organization, members have already begun trialing each other’s ingredients to boost protein and omega content in the alternative seafood space.

This will ultimately raise the nutritional profile of alternative seafood altogether, another of our goals.

We’re also focused on pursuing opportunities to educate and raise awareness. Aligned with that, we are in the process of commencing landmark global studies, among other strategic plans. We list 6 key pillars shared by members on the FOF website.

Daniela: What challenges and opportunities do you predict FOF startups might face working with large legacy or traditional seafood companies to create sustainable food options?

Marissa: There are numerous economic arguments for diversifying production in partnership with legacy seafood companies, including job creation and rapidly scaling output to meet demand. According to the FAO, one-third of the world's assessed fisheries are currently pushed beyond their biological limits.

Meanwhile, more than 3 billion people and counting rely on seafood as their primary protein source. Legacy companies know they simply cannot keep operating ‘business as usual’ and are beginning to recognize that alternative seafood is the missing key.

We are enthusiastic about collaborating with these businesses because they have the resources to accelerate, distribute, and market nutritious and delicious sustainable seafood solutions. The future of food, and indeed, the future of this planet, requires that we all work together. After all, “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

Daniela: I’m hopeful that the tides are turning and we’ll see a reversal of the exploitation of the world’s fish stocks as alternative blue foods achieve market penetration. What other barriers to adoption remain, and are any breakthroughs on the horizon?

Marissa: One barrier is the false ‘health halo’ that remains around traditional seafood. With growing public awareness and concern over health problems, environmental degradation, and animal welfare with land-based meat (beef, pork, poultry, etc.), many consumers already view seafood as a healthier protein.?

To accelerate alternative seafood for mainstream adoption, raising awareness of the concern with traditional seafood (like microplastics and antibiotics) and educating consumers on how alternative seafood solves this problem will be key.

Alternatives for whole-cut salmon filets, sushi-grade tuna, smoked salmon, flaky white fish, shrimp, crab, and calamari are all on the horizon—with more alternative options in the development pipelines.

Daniela: Aside from overcoming barriers with consumers, are there any barriers or progress to report on in the public sector, specifically?

Marissa: Absolutely. First, regulatory approvals for human food consumption must be sped up for innovative alternative seafood companies to get their excellent products to market. It’s time to dispense with antiquated systems that don’t reflect the incredibly urgent need to transform our food supply and securely feed an exponentially growing population for the sake of our planet.

One of the benefits of being a smaller, relatively newer industry, is that we have the opportunity to learn from the challenges that alternative meat and dairy have already faced—including those related to regulations and labeling wars—and hopefully leapfrog many of them.

Daniela: Can you please explain the concept of labeling wars across food and beverage (F&B) industries for readers who are unfamiliar with the concept?

Marissa: In short, meat and dairy industry lobbyists manufactured an imaginary crisis about food product labels. They peddled a myth to lawmakers about “disingenuous” and “misleading” labels on alternative F&B products.?

The Plant Based Foods Association, Good Food Institute, and other alternative F&B industry advocates have posited that the lawsuits are really to prevent free trade and to squash industry competition.

Alternative foods have effectively convinced the courts that consumers are smart. They comprehend product differentiation thanks to qualifiers attached to alternative products (e.g., ‘plant-based’ burgers, and ‘oat’ milk). And, existing data indicates that consumers are intentionally seeking meat and dairy alternatives for environmental, ethical, and health reasons—not being duped into purchasing these products.

Daniela: So now that readers have the context on these labeling wars in general, have there been any similar labeling wars in the alternative seafood sector, or do you expect them?

Marissa: We recently saw a big win for plant-based seafood when the Vienna City Council threw out a case against Austria-based Revo Foods . In defending the linguistic merits of their labeling, this FOF member referenced precedent established by sister alternative food sectors.

Recently, FOF contributed (behind the scenes) to a presentation with the European Vegetarian Union (EVU) to the European Parliament about fish alternatives and the language used to describe them.

Moving forward, we’ll proactively support the alternative seafood industry by educating legislators on how truthful, well-known language can effectively describe the form, functionality, and taste of alternative seafood products.

Daniela: A solid strategy. Speaking of support, let’s shift gears a bit to talk about how and why FOF is prioritizing supporting and uplifting women founders in the alternative seafood space?

Marissa: One of the things that inspired me to focus on alternative seafood over a year ago was the incredibly high proportion of women working and innovating in this space. Interestingly, it’s higher than what we see in the alternative meat and dairy industry.

Much like in other alternative protein and future food industries, we typically hear about the bigger, male-led, major VC-backed companies. But we know that women founders are statistically more adept at allocating resources and their companies perform better.

Betting on women—and women-led companies—is simply good business. I am so proud that 40% of FOF members are women, a percentage that will grow as we do!

Daniela: That’s a huge accomplishment, it can’t have been easy. You and I have both encountered a pervasive lack of funding for female founders in the ocean tech and alternative seafood sectors.

Marissa: Yes, and this is reflective of the dismal investment statistics for women-founded companies. Less than 3% of all venture capital goes to women and even less to women of color (less than 1%).?

Looking specifically at the alternative protein, plant-based, and food tech sectors, 80% of recently surveyed women founders have encountered gender bias in fundraising. It's untenable and unacceptable.

To transform our food systems, investors need to fund and accelerate women-led startups. No exceptions.

Daniela: I couldn’t agree more. Are there any conferences you’d recommend to women founders in alternative seafood, or impact investors looking to fund them?

Marissa: I attended the Vegan Women Summit in Los Angeles two years ago—an incredible event that brought together nearly 1,000 founders, impact investors, and ecosystem players.

I walked away truly inspired to pivot to alternative food tech. I also met many powerful women changemakers of whom I now consider dear friends. I couldn't recommend this event enough to all women founders, impact investors, and truly, all people who want to connect with other passionate people working to transform our food system and create a more sustainable, ethical, and equitable world.?

Daniela: Sounds like a can’t-miss event!

Thank you so much for this window into the challenges and opportunities in the emerging alternative seafood sector and for your prioritization of empowering women in the space.

Marissa: Thank YOU for everything you do to accelerate young women in the sustainable blue economy, including the founders of startups in both of our networks like AKUA PBC ?? ?? and Oshi . I look forward to continuing to explore our synergies in the future!

Daniela: Agreed—much more collaboration and cooperation to come between our two networks!

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