Start-up pitch: How BettaF!sh is creating seafood from seaweed

There’s a gap in the market for plant-based seafood, as BettaF!sh founder and CEO, Deniz Ficicioglu, explains in the first of FoodNavigator’s Start-up pitch series.

The plant-based industry is growing, evolving and innovating, and BettaF!sh is leading the way within the seafood alternatives segment.

“Seaweed belongs on all our plates,” says founder and CEO, Deniz Ficicioglu. “It grows in great diversity in all oceans and too rarely finds its way into our diets. Thanks to its great taste, incredible nutritional value, and environmental friendliness, it rightly plays the leading role in our fish alternatives.”

Founded in 2020, the Berlin-based brand is recognisable for its colourful branding and creative names, with SAL-NOM and TU-NAH bringing a light-hearted feel to supermarket shelves.

But while the new brand’s image is focused on fun. Its reason for being is much more serious.  

“Our priority is conserving the oceans,” says Ficicioglu. “We are achieving that by building a whole new industry of impact-enhanced foods based on seaweed. Seaweed cultivation itself is regenerative and a sustainable alternative to fishing.”

BettaF!sh is now co-funded by the European Union as part of EIT Food’s Rising Food Stars programme​ and is already sold is eight countries across Europe, as well as being available online.

There are an estimated 6.62 million people now identifying as vegan across the EU, according to data intelligence platform, Statista. And with this growth in the popularity of plant-based diets, fuelled in part by events like Veganuary​, it’s likely plant based brands such as BettaF!sh will continue to go from strength to strength.

Read more: FoodNavigator’s guide to start-up success​