October 5,  2020

Shiok Meats investor unsettled by founder's dubious claims about shrimp farms

A misleading claim made early this year by the founder of Singapore-based Shiok Meats -- which develops lab-cultured shrimp cells as a substitute for natural shrimp meat -- has provoked a strong response from Aqua-Spark, the lead investor in its recently completed US$12.6 million Series A funding round.

Shiok Meats founder Sandhya Sriram delivered a TEDx talk in January which had criticised the farmed shrimp sector. She claimed that "most of the shrimp we are eating is not even shrimp," elaborating that it is "something else that has that jelly-like texture" due to the injection of silicone or other non-natural substances.

Sriram also described the seafood industry as "completely unsustainable", and claimed to have visited a shrimp farm that used sewage water, bleach and antibiotics for production.

The TEDx franchise has flagged the video of the speech in its YouTube channel as  "not corroborated by sufficient scientific evidence." Negative, online comments came from outraged shrimp farmers in India.  

Aqua-Spark co-founder and managing partner Amy Novogratz said she had not seen the video prior to the investment in Shiok Meats made by the Netherlands-based investment fund that aims to make global aquaculture more sustainable.

"As far as the content of Sandhya's talk, we don't agree with her take on shrimp farming and do not like that it furthers misconceptions that are out there," Novogratz told SeafoodSource. "Yes, it's true aquaculture still has challenges but a lot of groups are working hard to solve them and we've already seen and are invested in technologies that are transforming the way we produce shrimp - making it more resource-efficient, less polluting, more transparent and controlled. Shrimp production has come a long way and aquaculture in general has major potential to feed the world with a minimal footprint. We need to celebrate all of that work and progress to continue to move it forward."

Despite Sriram's comment, Novogratz expressed Aqua-Spark's intent to work with Shiok Meats "on a more informed aquaculture message and further igniting this global conversation about sustainability and protein production."

"I look forward to learning more about some of the great work going on in the seafood industry to make it more sustainable," said Sriram in an email to SeafoodSource.

"I believe that the aquaculture industry as well as cell-based seafood will need to work together, rather than compete, as the world is going to need a large amount of protein with the sheer population growth."

- SeafoodSource