Plant-based seafood hits the tables in Shanghai

Plant-based food company Green Monday launched a new product series called OmniSeafood, which features "fish" and "crab meat" made from soybean and peas, in Shanghai on Aug 23.

The new series includes frozen meals containing plant-based fish fillet, crab cake and tuna, and is now being sold at their restaurant Green Common at Raffles City Changning. Distribution of these products to supermarket chains will begin in the fourth quarter this year.

At the product launch, David Yeung, founder of the Hong Kong-based company, said that he hopes to communicate the concept of protecting the ocean from overfishing through the new series.

"I was shocked by the statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organization which shows that capture fisheries and aquaculture production has increased by nine times in the past 70 years, and many species are on the edge of extinction as a result of overfishing," he said. "That's what prompted us to work on OmniSeafood after the launch of our plant-based pork in 2018."

As the demand for plant-based meat has been growing in China, Yeung said the company will open its first factory in the Chinese mainland in Guangdong province by the end of this year. Two more Green Common restaurants will also be opened in Shanghai.

"We hope to see more people adopt the 'flexitarian diet', which means setting up a vegetarian diet but also being flexible on meat consumption from time to time," said Yeung.

"We encourage people to go vegetarian one day a week. It could be a 'Green Monday', but any other day is good too."

Green Monday, which was recently ranked eighth on Fortune's 20 Most Socially Impactful Companies in China list, presently sells plant-based products in more than 20 countries and regions.