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This week on SHIFT
What would you say if someone handed you a visually perfect salmon filet that contains no fish? Same protein, same omega-3s, and none of the mercury or microplastics. This week we revisit an episode from the archive and take a field trip to Toronto, to visit a startup that says the real product isn't the salmon at all. It's the machine that makes it.
In our Listening Tour episodes we put on a pretend sweater and leave the studio Mister Rogers style to go see something interesting. Our tour guide this week is Chris Bryson, founder and CEO of New School Foods. His team spent four years building a manufacturing process meant to replace extrusion, the technology nearly every plant-based meat company relies on. I ask about the engineering, then taste the results.
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Three things to listen for
1. The big bet is against extrusion
Extrusion cooks proteins with heat and shear, so most plant-based meat is effectively pre-cooked before it ships. Bryson thinks the whole industry put its eggs in one basket, and walks me through the alternative.
2. Directional freezing builds the fibers
The fillets are frozen bottom to top, in the same kind of plate freezer used on fishing boats. Thousands of ice crystals form a honeycomb. Melt them away, and you have a seaweed-based scaffold (agar and alginate) to fill with potato protein and algae oils.
3. At the time of the taping, version 26 was on menus, and 27 in the works
The team ships numbered release candidates, tests changes weekly with restaurant partners, and takes tasting notes seriously. After a bite on tape, I flag a missing oily richness and a noticeable fiber taste. Both of which they’re working on in the next versions.
The real product behind everything we believe is the new manufacturing technology.
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