Austrian Startup Unveils The World's First Super-Realistic 3D Printed Plant-Based Salmon

Food tech startup from Austria revealed it had created the world's first 3D-printed, plant-based salmon. Revo Foods announced it would be hosting a tasting event for its 'Salmon with Attitude' at a Vienna restaurant this weekend (March 6th).

Last week, the company wrote on Facebook: "​The future of seafood has arrived!"​ 

"After countless of hours spent on R&D, we are happy to announce that the world's first 3D-printed plant-based seafood is here!"​

The business was founded by students working together on a project aiming to commercialise vegan fish alternatives in Europe. Their goal is to fully recreate the texture, structure, taste and nutritional profile of seafoods like salmon and tuna, but with 100% plant-based ingredients.

Revo Foods CEO Robin Simsa told TheVeganKind: "There are already a lot of (great) plant-based products for hamburgers or sausages, but there is hardly anything available for seafood. Seafood is great, but unfortunately overfishing and industrial aquaculture seriously threatens the ocean sustainability. We want to offer seafood lovers a great alternative that recreates the taste, texture and nutritional values of fish such as salmon or tuna."

Although plant-based seafood​ is becoming a big trend, most fish alternatives manufacturers offer simple products like crumbed fish sticks and not complex products such as salmon or tuna.

The salmon substitute is developed using the 3D printing process, which recreates the intricate appearance of salmon fillets with its red tissue and white tissue. Thanks to this technology, plant-based fish look super realistic and resemble traditional fish in their texture. 

"Seafood such as salmon is incredible complex (think of the white and orange stripes). It is almost impossible to recreate this complexity with traditional production methods, especially for fillets. With the 3D food printer, we have a perfect control over the shape and structure of the final product, and can therefore fine-tune the perfect-looking salmon fillet", said Simsa.

"We spent months of trial and error with different ingredients and process methods, and finally came up with a new method to achieve a high fibrosity on a molecular level, that allows us to make our salmon more realistic than any other salmon-replacement before!" he added. 

Revo's 3D printed salmon is high in protein, high in Omega-3 and is made with 11 ingredients, including pea protein, algae extracts, plant oils and citrus fibres. The company offers both a 'smoked' and a 'creamy' version of salmon. The products will launch next month in Austria with plans to expand on other European markets in the coming months. 

The first customers' reactions are positive. Some of the people trying the 3d printed salmon claim it is so realistic that they cannot believe that it is made only of plants. 

"We have given our product to more than 100 potential customers already, and more than 80% said that the product is “good” or “very good”, and 72% said that they “would buy this product”, which was a great proof for our advanced salmon products," said Simsa.

Revo Foods plans to launch its vegan salmon in the UK in 2021.