Imagine sitting down to eat pasta with meat sauce, but the meat doesn’t come from an animal that walks on land, or even a plant-based alternative. Instead, it comes from a squishy marine invertebrate called a tunicate.
Strange as this may seem, it’s totally possible, especially if you’re in Scandinavia. There, the startup Pronofa sells a convincing-looking ground beef replacement made of processed tunicates, also known as sea squirts. People who’ve tried it say it cooks and tastes similarly to red meat. Scientists also say it has potential as a sustainable food choice.
Gelatinous tunicates aren’t often seen as food, and some balk at eating them even when they’re processed into a beef-like product. They can also be invasive if grown outside of their natural habitat. Still, minced tunicate that’s farmed and marketed with care could be an intriguing part of a sustainable diet. For some Scandinavian customers, it already is.
Between the land and the sea
Pronofa named its line of tunicate products Purply. The name was chosen partly because “our new food ingredient was between ‘land’ (red meat) and ‘sea’ (blue ocean), which made purple a fitting color,” said Magnus Petersen, Pronofa’s research and development director.
The actual product isn’t purple. It’s the reddish color of ordinary red meat. That’s a bit surprising, given the animal it comes from: Ciona tunicates, which look like bundles of translucent tubes.
“They’re kind of like animal versions of seaweed,” said Kieran Murphy, marine biologist at the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies. They grow on hard surfaces beneath the water, just like the plant. Yet if you touch a tunicate unexpectedly, it will show an animal reaction: squirting water through tube-like structures called siphons.
Other types of tunicates have long been eaten in many places, from South Korea to Chile. But they’re typically eaten as a seafood dish, sometimes raw. Turning them into a red meat substitute is a new concept.
Farming the fjords
The Purply line includes prepared meals, like lasagna and chili con carne. But the most popular item is the minced meat, a basic ingredient for all kinds of dishes. “It needs to be pan- or oven-fried at a lower temperature, but other than that, it can be used for virtually all the same purposes as regular minced meat,” Petersen said.
Bringing the product to stores starts in the sea. Pronofa grows tunicates at aquaculture facilities, or underwater farms, in Norway and Sweden. The Ciona species it grows is native to the area, which feeds by filtering plankton from the water. Already a natural part of this environment, the tunicates need minimal encouragement to grow. “Cultivating Ciona has very little environmental impact, as no feed, no land use or chemicals are used in cultivation,” Petersen said.
After three months, they’re ready for harvest. During processing, the company adds plant-based ingredients like rapeseed oil to enhance the taste and texture. Then, the finished product is ready to take beef’s place in a burger.
Both Murphy and Russell Wyeth, marine biologists who aren’t affiliated with Pronofa, say that in the right growing conditions, tunicates can be a highly sustainable food source. “I have a healthy pinch of salt of skepticism, but I think it’s a really, really cool idea to pursue,” Murphy said.
That skepticism comes from a couple of potential risks, which could emerge if tunicates were grown in new places. As filter feeders, they clean the water around them, but can also absorb pollutants in the process. But eating filter feeders is safe if the animals are harvested from clean, regularly tested water. People routinely eat more familiar filter feeders, like oysters and mussels.
“As long as the company and the people who are actually culturing them or growing them are checking these things, it should be okay,” Murphy said.
Wyeth, who is the biology chair at St. Francis Xavier University, added that the deep, mobile waters of Scandinavian fjords — where Pronofa’s farms are located — are actually ideal for growing food, because they don’t allow pollution to build up easily.
The other possible risk is that tunicates are often invasive. Pronofa grows a species native to Scandinavia, which is safe for the local ecosystem. But if this kind of Ciona meat caught on and was farmed elsewhere, companies could inadvertently spread the animals where they don’t belong.
Then again, making minced meat out of tunicates could be a clever way to use existing invasive populations. Some organizations actually advocate for eating invasive species to control their spread while unlocking a cheap, available food source. “A way to use them is always intriguing because it seems to be a win-win thing,” Wyeth said.
The beef of the sea?
Because their larvae float freely in the water, it’s harder to control the spread of tunicates than animals like cattle or chickens. Still, farming tunicates rather than land animals, especially beef cattle, has benefits.
Producing meat from Scandinavian Ciona tunicates is about 100 times less impactful on the climate than producing beef, according to Pronofa. Cattle’s digestive process makes methane gas, and methane contributes significantly to climate change. Raising beef cattle can also harm the environment when forests are cleared to make pasture space. Growing crops to feed cattle, like corn and alfalfa, requires even more land, plus water for irrigation. Meanwhile, farming tunicates requires neither land nor fresh water.
Convincing people to swap beef for marine invertebrates, however, is its own challenge. “The exact same arguments apply to oyster aquaculture,” Wyeth said. “Yet we’re not overrun with oyster aquaculture, right? We’re overrun with beef farms.”
Convincing consumers
Pronofa changed the equation by making marine invertebrates look and taste more like beef. But will people bite? Magnus Naess, a prominent chef and food service consultant in Sweden, has firsthand experience convincing folks to try it.
Naess first learned about Purply products at an industry event. Now, he’s working with the company to add tunicate to menus in Scandinavia’s public spaces, like schools and hospitals.
He’s found that getting people to take the first bite can be the hardest part. “Then they try it and they’re like, ‘Wow, this is actually really, really good,’” Naess said. “We have to really make a smashing impact with presentation and not try to challenge people’s eating habits too much.”
When tunicates look and taste like a recognizable meat dish, people are more open to the experience, Naess said. He suggested that diehard meat lovers can start by mixing Purply with a familiar option like chicken to make it more approachable.
As familiarity grows, Purply products are reaching new customers in Scandinavia. “We launched a couple of ready-to-eat dishes via Oda.com in February, and the reaction from consumers has been fantastic,” said Pronofa’s Petersen, referring to a home-delivery grocery store. In September, Purply also arrived at select stores of a Norwegian grocery chain called Rema 1000.
In the long term, Petersen said he hopes to export Scandinavian tunicates as an ingredient for other food brands to use. “Most people still don’t know what Purply, Ciona, or even tunicates are, so we still have a big job ahead of us,” he said.
Among the proliferation of plant-based meat replacements, Pronofa’s offering a choice that uses real meat, albeit from a surprising source. “It’s an alternative to plant-based,” Naess said. “It’s just an alternative to the alternative.”
