The Business of Saving the Ocean—with TIME's Justin Worland

So I want to ask you, Justin, your story did not include any mention of the alternative seafood market.

I want to ask you, did you consider companies making any of the plant-based seafood or fermentation-derived or even the cultivated meat seafood? What's going on there and why are they not featured? I

mean, it's a...

Good question.

I mean, I think largely the stories of the companies that I mentioned were driven by what the investors I talked to mentioned, a combination of things.

One is the investors and what their portfolios looked like.

And then two, the people that I would meet in the course of my reporting.

And for whatever reason, I mean, there's a lot of reasons that you could speak to better.

I mean, I think this is an area that has been...

I think the sort of perception among investors right now is that this is a really hard space.

And so I think for that reason, there's been less of, at least in my experience, there have been fewer investors who were like, let me tell you about the cultivated seafood space.

I'm curious what you think.

Yeah, sure.

I mean, well, first, I'm happy to give my opinion.

I'll just note, first of all, you know, probably about half of all of the plastic that's in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch comes from fishing nets, right? It's not coming from Heinz ketchup packages that Knott Blood might be replacing.

It's coming from fishing gear.

You look at, like, all these North Atlantic white whales are this highly endangered species.

They are getting entangled in...

in fishing gear to the point where NOAA estimates that 85% of this one species of whales have been mangled in fishing gear.

So the argument that we have to do something about fishing and crabbing and so on seems very compelling to me, not only for the fish and the whales, but excuse me, not just for the oceans, but for the fish and the whales as well.

And so then the question is what? And you mentioned that cultivated meat has really struggled.

That's definitely true.

There are some cultivated seafood companies like Wild Type and Blue Nalu, both of which have been guests on this show in the past.

But they're not really commercialized in any meaningful sense.

On the other hand, you do have some plant-based seafood companies like Oshi, O-S-H-I, who's also been a guest on the show.

So I want to ask you, Justin, your story did not include any mention of the alternative seafood market.

I want to ask you, did you consider companies making any of the plant-based seafood or fermentation-derived or even the cultivated meat seafood? What's going on there and why are they not featured? I

mean, it's a...

Good question.

I mean, I think largely the stories of the companies that I mentioned were driven by what the investors I talked to mentioned, a combination of things.

One is the investors and what their portfolios looked like.

And then two, the people that I would meet in the course of my reporting.

And for whatever reason, I mean, there's a lot of reasons that you could speak to better.

I mean, I think this is an area that has been...

I think the sort of perception among investors right now is that this is a really hard space.

And so I think for that reason, there's been less of, at least in my experience, there have been fewer investors who were like, let me tell you about the cultivated seafood space.

I'm curious what you think.

Yeah, sure.

I mean, well, first, I'm happy to give my opinion.

I'll just note, first of all, you know, probably about half of all of the plastic that's in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch comes from fishing nets, right? It's not coming from Heinz ketchup packages that Knott Blood might be replacing.

It's coming from fishing gear.

You look at, like, all these North Atlantic white whales are this highly endangered species.

They are getting entangled in...

in fishing gear to the point where NOAA estimates that 85% of this one species of whales have been mangled in fishing gear.

So the argument that we have to do something about fishing and crabbing and so on seems very compelling to me, not only for the fish and the whales, but excuse me, not just for the oceans, but for the fish and the whales as well.

And so then the question is what? And you mentioned that cultivated meat has really struggled.

That's definitely true.

There are some cultivated seafood companies like Wild Type and Blue Nalu, both of which have been guests on this show in the past.

But they're not really commercialized in any meaningful sense.

On the other hand, you do have some plant-based seafood companies like Oshi, O-S-H-I, who's also been a guest on the show.