Anuga 2025: Seaweed-based vegan shrimp delivers on taste amid protein challenges
27 Oct 2025 | Jens Møller
Seaweed product specialist Jens Møller has developed a vegan alternative to cold-water shrimp with an enhanced organoleptic profile, ideal for convenience foods. Jonas Bech Kristensen, sales manager, explains how attempts to add protein to the formulation resulted in a compromised eating experience. The current version boasts no cholesterol, low calories, and an improved flavor compared to earlier iterations.
This is Missy Green with Good Ingredients First Aanooga 2025.
I'm here with Jonas, who is the sales manager at Jens Miller, and they are a seaweed producer.
They make seaweed-based products.
So can you tell us about what you have right here?
So basically we have developed a vegan shrimp, which is an alternative to cold water shrimp.
It's made out of seaweed and it's a new product for us.
We started with this product a few years ago.
Before that we have been commercially with our caveat, which has been sold since 1995, which is also one of the products we are presenting here today at the Annuga.
So yeah.
So how long has this product been on the market?
The vegan shrimps has been on the market for a few years now.
We started with a different recipe than we have today, and the first amount of time was a little challenging because the flavors were not as friendly as it is today.
Now we changed the flavor profile.
We are having a lot more success, to be honest.
And we have been doing that for 1.5 years with with a new flavor.
So what are some of the challenges that you've encountered with vegan seafood?
Obviously flavoring was a big challenge before.
Now that I think our organoleptic quality is more similar to the animal version, or one of the challenges we meet is nutri score.
It is very, very difficult to create.
A product that has the right organelliptic quality whilst getting an A grade in Nutriscore, it is not possible, at least not when working with seaweed shrimps.
So yeah.
What what is what's the factor that's holding you back from an A?
Especially protein, it's difficult to implement in our product.
It will absolutely change the structure of the product, and we will have something not not very nice to eat.
What is the source of protein?
Actually, there is not really any protein in our product.
It is not rich in protein at all.
So, but you can say it's low calories and it's no cholesterol, if you like.
Some people like to think that is healthy and some people like to think a lot of protein is healthy, so yeah.
So where can you currently buy this product?
Which markets are you in?
The vegan shrimps you can find today.
You can find it in all major Danish supermarkets as a private label product, and then you can also buy it in the Danish food service.
You can buy it in Italy as.
I hope after Annuga that I have opened the door to Sweden and Canada.
But let's see, let's see.
It's still a new product and we are doing a lot of effort.
That's also why we are here at the alternative hall.
What do you think will be the next step here?
For, for the company and what you're developing, are you looking at other types of seafood to develop or to scale up your vegan shrimp?
No, we want to meet criteria in terms of convenience because we know it's it's a market in high demand.
So to be honest, we want to , do some, work with the convenient producers.
It would be great to to sell this for someone who could, put a vegan sandwich on the market, for example, but, I'll have a walk around and see if they're here and if they, they want to do it with me.
All right, thanks so much.
