Another ClimateTech Podcast
Another ClimateTech Podcast is a weekly interview series that explores the fight against climate change through the lens of entrepreneurship, investment, academia, activism, and art. Join Ryan Grant Little, a seasoned climatetech founder, advisor, and investor, as he interviews the climate warriors trying to save us from ourselves.
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Another ClimateTech Podcast
A betta way to make a tuna sandwich, with Deniz Ficicioglu of BettaF!sh
Deniz Ficicioglu loves tuna so much that she doesn't want them to be put in a can. 🐟
That's why she founded BettaF!sh, an alternative proteins company that uses seaweed to create plant-based fish alternatives that replicate the taste, texture, and experience of traditional fish, minus the devastating effects of fishing.
Check out this 30-minute episode to hear how:
🐟 Tuna are freaking awesome and can swim basically as fast as a Fiat 500
🇪🇺 Their products are currently available in 10 different European countries
🛫 Japan Airlines serves their vegan tuna on flights from London to Tokyo and back
🧪 The company's R&D team is continuously working on developing a toolbox of seaweed ingredients for food industry players
#climatetech #altproteins #fish #tuna #salmon #seaweed
Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.
Welcome to another Climate Tech Podcast interviews with the people trying to save us from ourselves. Deniz Ficicioglu is co-founder of Bettafish makers of plant-based fish products from seaweed. I've had Bettafish on my radar for a few years now and I've been thrilled to see them go from success to success. We talked about seaweed and tuna, but also about growing communities, trends in grocery retail and their deal with Japan Airlines. I reached Deniz in Berlin. I'm Ryan Grant Little. Thanks for being here. Welcome to the podcast, Deniz. Thanks for having me. So you're the co-founder of Bettafish and Ocean Fruit and I want you to take a minute and delineate between the two of those as well. Are they different companies or different brands? But both of these make plant-based fish products out of seaweed. How did you start this? Where did you come up with the idea? What's the inspiration?
Deniz Ficicioglu:Yeah, so actually like almost five years ago now it's crazy how fast time runs. I met my co-founder and basically both of us were fascinated by seaweed and the huge potential it has in terms of making a positive impact on the way we eat, on the way we farm and cultivate our food. And our idea back then and it's still the mission of both companies, which is merged into one and our idea back then and it's still the mission of both companies, which is merged into one is how can we make seaweed attractive to a mainstream audience and how can we basically start eating seaweed on a daily basis? And the first company was Ocean Fruit. This is how we started, and back then it was just the two of us. We didn't have a tech team, nothing like this and we said, okay, where do we start? We need to build a supply chain within Europe and what would be the first product that people could relate to that's made of seaweed? And then we turned to the like sushi space and said, okay, there's this wakama salad, and this could be a first thing that we replicate, based on European seaweed, but with a twist. And the first products we launched with Ocean Fruit were seaweed salads in different flavors, with beetroot and horseradish, with mustard and dill, you know, really like flavors we know in Europe, but we've never associated or tried in combination with seaweed.
Deniz Ficicioglu:And we launched those products quite successfully actually, and mainly organic supermarket chains, because we realized, okay, this audience, who's shopping for organic products already is quite aware of the benefits of seaweed and interested in adding it to their diets. But pretty fast we came to like a natural growth stop, because there are only you know so many organic shoppers who can afford buying seaweed sellers that were quite expensive and organic on a regular basis. And that's when we actually started thinking about okay, is there another way, another trick to make people eat seaweed? And this is how we came up with Bettafish. So Bettafish really focused, like you said, focuses on making alternative fish products like tuna, like salmon, all these things, and Ocean Fruit is more the okay, let's have products made of seaweed, but we're not hiding anything and we're not replicating anything. And Bettafish really focuses on building this Trojan horse. You know, like, people care about tuna, they like tuna, they don't want to change, like the way they're cooking. So this is Bettafish and ocean fruit is more whole foods, I would say.
Ryan Grant Little:So I was interested to see that you talk not just about seaweed as your kind of input for your product, but regeneratively cultivated seaweed. Where do you source this from, or do you actually grow your own? Are you vertically integrated as a company?
Deniz Ficicioglu:I would say we are vertically integrated from harvest onwards, so we do not grow or cultivate our own seaweed, but we work with the pioneers, you know, in seaweed farming in Europe. So all the seaweed we use comes from Europe from Norway, sweden, ireland, the Netherlands where you really find like these, yeah, pioneers, I would say, who've been doing it for over 10 years, some of them, and who are strong believers in that. You know, this is an industry that will definitely grow. But, yeah, we don't farm ourselves. We've never planned to build our own farm, because we realized what is actually missing for this industry to take off is the part after the harvest, you know.
Deniz Ficicioglu:So, up until we came to the stage, most of the seaweed that was cultivated was just taken out of the ocean, frozen, dried, that's it. But if you think about the whole food system and agriculture in general, like we never just pick apples, and that's it, you know, or potatoes, and that's it, we turn potatoes into fries, into potato starch, into whatever, and so we said, okay, instead of doing what everyone else is doing, let's focus on creating this value chain and finding processing methods that really valorize these ingredients, to actually turn them into ingredients in the first place that you can use beyond how it's used today. So really that we can. We'll find it in alternative fish, maybe at some point in alternative meat, and this is what we're focusing on I had the irish seaweed farmer jennifer o'brien of sea and believe on the show recently.
Ryan Grant Little:Have you met her before? Have you spoken to her?
Deniz Ficicioglu:I haven't met her yet, but I listened to the episode okay, so I will not go into all the details by ben by. Seaweed is so amazing because everyone should just listen to her episode instead. But yeah, I know a lot of people in the seaweed space in Europe, but I haven't met her yet.
Ryan Grant Little:And so. But I want to ask you I mean, she and I talked more generally about the power of seaweed. You know, beyond just from the food side. I mean, I personally love the taste of seaweed and I remember you mentioned Netherlands, which makes that scans as being kind of a country that's ahead of the curve on this stuff. I remember having the Dutch weed burger, something like 2013 or something so more than 10 years ago already, and that was definitely innovative back then. But what I want to ask is why, if seaweed tastes good, it's kind of got salty umami and it's packed with nutrients. It's easy to good. It's kind of got salty umami and it's packed with nutrients. It's easy to grow. It's sustainable. Why don't we see more of it in Western diets? Why do I have to?
Deniz Ficicioglu:go to a Japanese restaurant to be able to order this on the menu. Yeah, I mean, that's a big question, right? I mean the benefits of seaweed have been clear and obvious and talked about for decades. You know, there's all research shows we should eat more seaweed. It's good for the environment, it's good for our bodies and this is the real nut to crack, so to say why people are so hesitant to incorporate these greens I mean, in the end they're also just greens just from the sea into their day-to-day diets, and I mean partially.
Deniz Ficicioglu:I mentioned the value chain before, so we have not figured out how to incorporate this in our day-to-day foods as parts of the ingredients list. But also, I mean, there was actually a long history and culture to eat seaweed in Europe, specifically in coastal areas, but nobody has yet managed to come up with really exciting dishes. You know, and people are lazy to be honest. They don with really exciting dishes.
Deniz Ficicioglu:You know, and people are lazy to be honest, they don't just want to. You know, they don't want to buy the dried seaweed, rehydrate it, chop it, cook it, ferment it until it tastes good and develops the actual flavor profiles that they contain. So I think we need to see more convenience foods around seaweed and also a bigger variety of seaweeds, because they all taste different. You know, we know nori and wakame from the sushi restaurant, but there's a seaweed that tastes like truffle, like lemon, like pepper. You know, there's seaweed that's more like spinach and we need to really combine them with foods we already know, like the flavors I mentioned for the ocean fruit salads, or incorporating it into vegan tuna to really for it to really pick off.
Ryan Grant Little:That makes a lot of sense. I'm thinking of my pantry, which is filled with bags of, you know, one kilogram bags of beans that you know need to be rehydrated, and I have all these great intentions of making you know delicious Mexican dinners and stuff like that, and one step of rehydrating it over a few hours or overnight is like too big a hurdle for me.
Deniz Ficicioglu:Yeah, exactly, we're lazy. We're also used used to already used to having everything ready to eat, you know. So I don't blame anyone okay.
Ryan Grant Little:So sticking with not blaming people and not being judgmental. Imagine you're at a sushi restaurant with a friend and they're about to order a spicy tuna roll. And so, in a non-judgmental, no guilt-tri way, what would you say to them to make them rethink that next time they think of buying tuna? And this is basically a cloaked way of saying what's the problem with old fashioned tuna.
Deniz Ficicioglu:Yeah, to be honest, I don't think there is a nonjudgmental way. I mean, if I have someone sitting across from me, you know, eating tuna, and I'm trying to convince them not to order it the next time, how can I be non-judgmental? But it's a good question, it's a challenge. I would probably like start bombarding them with facts, because everyone loves facts. Everybody loves being bombarded with facts Sorry, okay, maybe not Okay.
Ryan Grant Little:But I will share some facts, yes, okay, well, you share some facts and we'll leave the influencing to someone else.
Deniz Ficicioglu:Yeah, exactly oh, I would just random really fat, like facts, um, but I would probably start out with like saying hey, did you know like tuna is considered the tiger of the ocean? They can swim up to 80 kilometers per hour, which is already insane, I think. 80 kilometers per hour. Did you know that tuna, or like the valuable nutrients contained in tuna, actually comes from the fish they feed off and the fish that ate seaweed, you know? So all the ingredients that we actually want from eating fish or that's considered healthy in fish actually comes from seaweed. So why eat the fish?
Deniz Ficicioglu:I would say something like tuna is one of the rare fish species that no one has managed to farm yet, so all the tuna we consume is actually wild caught. I mean, yeah, already going into the judgmental direction, and there are lots of facts about tuna actually. For example, most tuna fish is caught around four years old, but this is usually the time before they're actually able to reproduce. You know they only start reproducing at like five to six years. And maybe one more health-related fact is that mercury levels in tuna are not just on an all-time high, but they haven't really changed during the past five decades, and this is mostly due to all the fossil fuels that we're using, and I think specifically when we share facts that are directly related to people's personal health, it's usually like a reason for them to maybe reduce the consumption or maybe switch it up the next time. But it's really tough to be judgmental here.
Ryan Grant Little:I mean, I personally find that the mercury argument goes a lot farther than kind of the destroying the oceans argument, which is a shame in some ways. But whatever works, I guess.
Deniz Ficicioglu:Yeah, we see this a lot, that people make the switch because of health reasons first and then start thinking about OK, what other implications does it have on the food system and on the ocean health?
Ryan Grant Little:yeah, okay, that's interesting, that's really interesting. So they go from the specific to the general kind of with this and think of, I mean, the more people start thinking of health as not you know the difference between global health and personal health, but rather at the how they intersect. I think, generally, people make better choices, for the most part. Definitely Do you. In the last five years, have you gained a special affinity for tuna? I mean, do you feel close to this particular fish? Do you feel like you're fighting the good fight on their behalf?
Deniz Ficicioglu:I mean these are crazy animals, right. They almost have no predators in the sea except for killer whales. I feel like they're super impressive and I mean I would love to see like a tuna school, you know, like to see them in real life. I haven't, I haven't had the opportunity yet, but yeah, I really do feel that we are fighting on their behalf.
Ryan Grant Little:I hope they, if you see a school of them in real life, that that they you know. Thank you for your work.
Deniz Ficicioglu:And not eat me yeah.
Ryan Grant Little:Yeah, maybe a school of tuna is a scary thing. Actually I'm someone who eats a plant-based diet, but I grew up on my mom's tuna fish sandwiches with their crusts cut off, and a few years back at the Food Hack Conference in Lausanne, I was super happy to bite into my first betta fish sandwich and I haven't had one since and I wonder how it's changed from then and how you kind of do product development. Are you on version 2.0 right now or what does that look like?
Deniz Ficicioglu:I mean, first of all, you are based in vienna and you find the sandwich in every villa, so go to their next villa and get another tuna sandwich.
Ryan Grant Little:You're really, I should say there's a villa 400 meters from me and there's a spar 100 meters from me, and you, as you made the point before, people are lazy.
Deniz Ficicioglu:I do not exclude myself from that okay, but maybe next time make a small detail. But yeah, I mean, obviously I love to hear that. We kind of brought a little bit of this childhood memories you know this nostalgia back into your life and this is something we hear a lot that people when they were young, you know they had tuna melts, tuna mayo sandwiches, tuna mayo dips, tuna pizza, which is a big thing in Germany, and a lot of people who stopped eating tuna missed this feeling. You know this nostalgia. And there's something special to the tuna sandwiches. Actually, it's the one product that hasn't changed since day one and this is crazy and this is I made this realization only recently that first product we put out there. It's a winner. People love the taste, it works perfectly.
Deniz Ficicioglu:We haven't changed it at all, but we have iterated the tuna itself still like a million times, but for other applications. So what I'm trying to say is for the tuna, we have nailed it from the beginning. You know I mean also a lot of work that we put in there, but then adapting it to other applications, like the pizza, putting it in the can where you add heat and pressure to the maximum to make it shelf stable. This was a whole different story and we basically had to reformulate the whole product again and again and again for the different applications. So what you see in the can now is a completely different product than what you see on the sandwich. So it's a bit of both. You know that the sandwich actually never changed, but the rest changes still to the date and we are currently in launching the. I mean I would say 2.0, 3.0, but in between there were a million versions.
Ryan Grant Little:And what about product line expansion? Are you going to go beyond? How many SKUs do you have right now and where do you see yourself in a year SKUs?
Deniz Ficicioglu:do you have right now and where do you see yourself in a year? Yeah well, we launched a lot of SKUs both in retail and food service industry, like big bag and box, 20 kilo sizes. You know, frozen, fresh, shelf stables, and we tested a lot of these SKUs and now we're actually reducing it a little bit because we saw some are performing better than others. And also also, you know, making the tough decision of killing a product and taking it out is super important for us. So, good question. I think we're at 13, 14 skews just on the tuna. And then we have actually something new coming up, which is the cell nom so not salmon but cell nom and of a wordplay just like with the tuna, and it's launching in May, june, roundabout.
Ryan Grant Little:Okay, and what kind of product will that be? Is that fillet? Is that smoked salmon?
Deniz Ficicioglu:It's in the direction of smoked salmon, but not like these cold cuts, but in different bars. I'm not spoiling too much. It's not going to be the fillet. There are quite a few companies out there who have launched fillets.
Ryan Grant Little:Okay, interesting. It'll be interesting for Revo here in Vienna to hear about that, I'm sure.
Deniz Ficicioglu:They have a tuna too, that's true.
Ryan Grant Little:Yeah, that's true. I spent some time looking at your online reviews and it was really interesting to see, just first of all, how passionate people are about this product. I mean, you have really good reviews very high star rating or whatever it is on things like Trustpilot. Good reviews, very high star rating or whatever it is on things like Trustpilot, and the words that come up a lot are things like taste, texture, smell, essence as being very tuna-like or, for a lot of people, better, and so I was really interested to see also that there are people who are not vegan, not vegetarian, and actually prefer this for a number of reasons. A lot of them, I think, for kind of climate reasons as well, are interested to make the switch. I'm curious. I mean, a lot of the companies that I talked to on this podcast are B2B companies. You're B2C. When you have an early adopters or group of early adopters who really love it or who are major promoters, or group of early adopters who really love it or who are major promoters, what do you do to?
Deniz Ficicioglu:build a community around that and kind of keep them and leverage them as promoters. Yeah, I mean, if you ask me, building a community is one of the toughest things there is because, first of all, you need to find your group of people who are really interested in what you're doing and also willing to share their opinion. I read the statistics somewhere that you know, a lot of the times, people either, if they're super excited about a product or disappointed, they still never share it anywhere, you know. So it's really a small fraction of people who are proactively talking about it. If you ask them or don't ask them, they will do it anyway.
Deniz Ficicioglu:So this is definitely one of the toughest tasks for us because also, initially, we weren't able to have our own shop because we had fresh and frozen products, you know.
Deniz Ficicioglu:So how do you get the products out there in front of people? This was the main challenge for us, like, how do you get the product out there? And for us, this was a lot of, I would say, groundwork, you know. I mean we attended a lot of events and we sponsored a lot of events. So smaller conference, bigger conferences, food hack slash, you name it student university conferences and really showed them that, hey, we're here, we have this amazing product you need to feed people. You are actively trying to do something better here because you're proactively looking for vegan catering, for example. Let's just join forces. You know, and I think our team, our social media team and marketing team, are also an exceptionally great job in how they engage with people, and it's a lot of time and a lot of effort that they put in there and have put in there to find these ambassadors that are still strong and big fans.
Ryan Grant Little:I say that you're a B2C but I guess also there's a B2B element and you're probably in food service in different places. One of the pieces that got, I think, the most coverage was about a year and a half ago when Japan Airlines started carrying betta fishes I guess the tuna sandwiches was it on some of their flights and I wonder if you could talk a bit about how you land a partnership like that and kind of what the fallout you know was after that. Did you get other airlines calling you, other companies calling you up afterwards?
Deniz Ficicioglu:Yeah, it's still one of the partnerships I'm the most proud of, to be honest, because I mean, the reason why we reached out to them is that they have super strong and ambitious sustainability goals, including being net zero by 2050. You know being very strict about single use packaging etc. And this is company-wide you know. So we were super impressed by that and obviously I mean it's a japanese company and as a japanese company, they have a have, I would say, the best knowledge of seaweed and tuna. You know there's such a long history and heritage in eating both that we were super intrigued in just reaching out to them and getting their feedback. You know it was just like hey, what do you think this? Is this actually a replacement or what is missing? So we started working with their team in London and there was huge fans right away and they pulled it off, or that they they created a menu with a vegan tuna wrap. Now it's a vegan tuna onigiri to serve it on flights from London to Tokyo and back in first and business class.
Ryan Grant Little:Wow, amazing. I mean that could go either way in some ways. Also right, if a country has a really long tradition of a particular type of food, that can make them both either resistant or accepting of kind of innovation on that. And so I mean, if I you know, this is being played out quite a bit with cultivated meat around the world and you look at Italy, which has just banned it and trying to kind of make this about. You know their food history and blah, blah, blah. But so I mean it's great to see that a company like Japan Airlines, which is, you know like, obviously a flagship of Japanese society, to accept this wholeheartedly. Are you expanding to other airlines as well?
Deniz Ficicioglu:We are in touch with other airlines. There's no decision made yet. Also, you know, when you start looking into the whole food service industry, it works completely different from the retail industry and most of the menu decisions are made locally at their hubs, at the main hubs, and a lot of food actually for their flights is made in the hubs, you know, and then all the flights going out from there. So obviously there are logistical challenges there. You first need to get the product to their hubs instead of going to the individual locations and ports, and then you have to see and understand their audience.
Deniz Ficicioglu:Does the tuna, for example? It is big, for example, if we're talking about the Middle East, but it's not as big as in Europe or in North America. So does it actually fit their menu, or would a selenium fit actually better? You know there's so many things that you need to think about and have the right match. So we're in talks, let's see, and we see a lot of good collaborations popping up from different airlines with new products and hopefully we hope to get on more flights soon.
Ryan Grant Little:What about things like company canteens or university what do they call them Mensas or something like that here in Europe? I can imagine that there would be a lot of demand in places like this, especially, hopefully, with the younger generation.
Deniz Ficicioglu:Totally, and this is something, for example, we underestimated initially, like how big the catering, like the Betriebskantine they're called, you know, the canteens within the companies how big this business is, how many meals they make every day, how many people they feed every day. And, yeah, you mentioned the student menses, the student canteens, and we have quite a few of them who will incorporate our products already on their menus. I think next week there's another promotion in Berlin, you know. So everyone who's in Berlin should go to Berlin. And there are also quite a few canteens who go fully vegan or majority vegan. So this is really exciting and also helps us to get the product out into like in front of many more people. Dozman, for example, is one of the bigger wholesalers Dozman, vetro, chescolina we work with all of them.
Ryan Grant Little:Amazing. And grocery stores. So grocery store chains are getting better and better with their plant based selection. As I mentioned a Spar customer just because of its proximity. But yesterday I bought I were recording this just before Easter weekend and I bought vegan Lindt chocolate eggs which unfortunately won't make it through to the Easter weekend but they were literally not on the shelf the day before, and Easter chocolate has been there for weeks and weeks. So it's not that this just came out. You know it's not seasonal, but that product literally is one day old on the shelves there. Can you talk a bit about some of the trends? I mean, you're seeing this from a very up close and personal. What are some of the trends with grocery stores going more plant based?
Deniz Ficicioglu:That's a tough question, to be honest, because it feels like the trends change every day or the mood changes every day. I mean, after the hype in 2022, we had kind of tough year in 2023. I think that's not a secret. A lot of companies told and mentioned that sales weren't great in 2023. So we see a lot of hesitation on the retailer side because, I mean, it depends, right, there's some buyers who are personally not a fan and a believer in the plant-based sector and that's why they're hesitant to just put it out there. But we also see a lot of buyers who are believers in this and who want to make a difference and want to make a change, but maybe within their organization, you know, it's not on the highest agenda yet. So I mean, they're in a dilemma, right, they want to put the products out there, but they're not performing as the meat alternatives or the animal versions yet. So they have the goals that they need to reach and they usually can't reach them with just plant-based products. So we see this dilemma as well, and I think we need more retailers who are really putting this high, high up in the agenda and making this a company priority, because then all these teams together can work towards these goals right, and Billa, for example, is one of the companies who have made this top priority to grow this sector, and this is why, also, the buyers get to a table together and make decisions and not just based on what is performing well.
Deniz Ficicioglu:So this is one big trend and maybe that's also the reason why only plant-based Easter eggs come into the shelves last minute, because it's like, okay, what's happening here? But another trend I see as well is that some of the buyers are disappointed by the quality of products. I mean, the past two years we have seen a lot of products who are just another copy of something and that are using just the same ingredients that are being used, no matter if it's plant-based bacon, plant-based chicken, plant-based cheese, it's all the same ingredients and obviously you can see this in sales numbers, because if it tastes the same, you know it's not exciting anymore and it also doesn't bring a lot of value to the customers anymore. So we have a lot of talks with buyers who are super excited that we are using seaweed in our products and this is really making a difference and bringing a more complex flavor profile to our products.
Ryan Grant Little:Yeah, there's a plant based schnitzel wiener schnitzel here on the market and I've tried it a couple of times and I can guarantee you it's not going to win anyone over. I can't believe, you know I think we saw this over the past couple of years that there were some very mediocre products out on the market in the plant-based space, and some of it's just straight up mediocrity. In other cases it's investors pushing companies to have something on the market before they're ready, and so both of these things are kind of to blame. And there's been a bit of a bloodbath, a vegan bloodbath, of these things, some of these products, going the way of the dodo, and maybe that's healthy, right, this is all kind of normal for new market development, but I've definitely seen that shake out quite a bit and it's probably not over yet. And you're in five countries right now or at least last time I checked, you might be in more than that right now. Do you want to let us know where you're available and where you're expanding next?
Deniz Ficicioglu:Yeah, so we are actually available in 10 different European countries, which is crazy to think about. So it's German speaking countries Germany, austria, switzerland, it's the Netherlands, estonia, greece, france, spain, italy and we just got a listing in Lithuania and Czechia as well. So, yeah, not necessarily the markets where people would say, okay, these are super big and plant-based, but they're catching up and they don't have a lot of local companies sometimes, so they're really looking forward to importing them. I would still say our main focus is the German speaking countries because also, they are really looking forward to importing them. I would still say our main focus is the german-speaking countries because also they are the biggest markets for plant-based products. It's our home turf here in germany, but we see really good tractions in the other countries and so there's still a lot of fish lovers to convert.
Deniz Ficicioglu:You know, not everyone has made the switch yet, so we will stay in europe for now. There's still some, a lot of room to grow for us, but we are putting our feelers out there. You know, a little bit more remote already, but also they're not necessarily the countries where, like typical food tech startup would look like us singapore, that's not the countries we're aiming at. So, okay, but I can't spoil too much yet okay.
Ryan Grant Little:well, yeah, I was in wars Warsaw not too long ago and I was super amazed at the number of vegan restaurants there, and then somebody told me that Warsaw is, after Berlin, the most vegan or highest percentage of vegan restaurants in Europe. So that, I mean, it's plenty of surprises in this space, right? You never know. And yeah, I mean, who would have guessed that Japan Airlines would be interested in trialing and adopting a plant-based tuna? But there you have it. Is there anything that I didn't ask that you think listeners would be interested to hear about?
Deniz Ficicioglu:I mean, we talked a lot about our products right, about how the market is evolving, but maybe we can talk just a second about the R&D behind it, because I mean, I touched upon this a little bit. But how are we actually doing this? How are we turning seaweed into vegan tuna? And this is really the core of the tech team in our company. So most of the time they are working with a lot of different seaweed species and looking into the seaweed species individually, looking into are there already processing methods out there that we can use? What happens to the seaweed if we apply those processing methods and also what happens if we combine these seaweed species then and seaweed ingredients at another level of their processing step.
Deniz Ficicioglu:So what we are actually trying to build is kind of a toolbox of seaweed ingredients and better fish with the tuna and the salmon is just the first step for us, because we had these ingredients already developed a couple of years back but nobody wanted to buy it. You know, I mean, nobody believed that you can scale seaweed, that you can turn it into a mainstream thing, that people will be willing to pay for it. But this is the core of the R&D that we're doing and we are super excited now to start working with more industry players so they can incorporate the seaweed in their own products. So, yeah, it's a bit of a mix of B2B and B2C, and we are always looking for new talent in the biotech, food tech space to join our team and drive forward this innovation.
Ryan Grant Little:And if those people are listening right now, where should they find you online?
Deniz Ficicioglu:They should go to betterfishco or any social media channel LinkedIn, tiktok, whatever floats their boat, and reach out to us, happy to chat when they're in Berlin, happy to meet up and let us know what kind of role they're looking for, and then let's take it from there.
Ryan Grant Little:Amazing Deniz, thank you so much.
Deniz Ficicioglu:Thank you.
Ryan Grant Little:Thanks for listening to another Climate Tech Podcast. It would mean a lot if you would subscribe, rate and share this podcast. Get in touch anytime with tips and guest recommendations at hello at climate tech podcom. Find me, Ryan Grant Little, on LinkedIn. I'll be back with another episode next week. Bye for now.
