Your culinary future: fake shrimp made from algae

Two years ago, Dominique Barnes, the founder of a startup called New Wave Foods, was growing increasingly concerned about the environmental and human-rights costs of fresh seafood....They thought up an unusual way to do it: By making it out of plants and algae, in a lab....

Now, they say they are about eight months away from launching their first product, a popcorn “shrimp” that never touches an ocean... they are breaking down red algae, a food prawns eat to give them their pinkish color, and combining it with plant-based protein powder. The faux-shrimp, Barnes says, looks and tastes like the real thing, down to the elasticity and fishy tang....

Its first product will be a small shrimp that’s disguised in breading, but they ultimately hope to create a “naked” shrimp that can be used for shrimp cocktails and expand to other types of fish as well.

Further details at The Atlantic, where I found this statement that is so emblematic of the typical American diet:

Shrimp is now the most popular seafood Americans eat... “Americans love shrimp because of its low price and conduciveness to being heavily breaded and fried,” said Emily Balsamo, a research analyst...