What Is Current Foods Plant-Based Salmon?
Current Foods (formerly known as Kuleana before a 2022 rebrand) is a San Francisco-based food-tech company that makes raw-style, sushi-format plant-based seafood — first sushi-grade tuna, then a plant-based smoked salmon and a raw "sashimi" salmon aimed at the same refrigerated case as real fish. The company has raised roughly $18 million in seed funding from investors including GreatPoint Ventures, Union Grove Venture Partners, Astanor Ventures, and Electric Feel Ventures, money it has earmarked for retail shelf space and expansion beyond its original foodservice-only footprint.
That foodservice-first strategy matters for how you'll actually encounter this product. Current Foods salmon didn't launch in a typical frozen-aisle box; it launched at places like Erewhon in Los Angeles, sold out of the fish case alongside conventional seafood, and it's since shown up in the meat and seafood sections of a handful of independent grocers and natural food stores rather than being a fixture at every Kroger. If you've never seen it, that's less about the product failing and more about a distribution strategy that's still catching up to the ambition — competitors like Kikka Sushi (marketed under the Konscious Foods name at Whole Foods) have moved faster into mainstream grocery with a similar pitch.
The core idea is the same one driving the whole plant-based seafood category: recreate the raw, fatty, flaky texture of a salmon fillet well enough that it works sliced thin over rice as nigiri, cubed into a poke bowl, or laid across a bagel with vegan cream cheese — without a fish ever being involved.
Ingredients
Current Foods lists the following ingredients on its plant-based salmon: water, pea protein, high-oleic sunflower oil, natural flavors, bamboo fiber, gelifier, potato starch, sea salt, algae oil, lycopene, iron, and vitamin B12.
A few things worth flagging. Pea protein is the structural backbone — the same base ingredient Beyond Meat and most other plant-based meat brands lean on, chosen because it's neutral-tasting and holds moisture well. Bamboo fiber and potato starch do the textural heavy lifting, giving the flaky, slightly fibrous mouthfeel that plain pea protein alone can't replicate. The "gelifier" (most plant-based raw-fish products in this category use a konjac- or agar-based setting agent) is what lets the product hold together in thin raw-style slices instead of falling apart like a pea-protein burger patty would.
The ingredient that actually matters most nutritionally is algae oil, which is where this product's omega-3 content comes from — algae is the original source of the DHA and EPA that fish accumulate by eating algae themselves, so this is a legitimate way to get those fatty acids without fish, not just a marketing footnote. Lycopene (typically derived from tomatoes, sometimes made synthetically) provides the pink-orange color that mimics raw salmon's flesh tone, doing the same visual job that beet juice extract does in plant-based beef products. Iron and vitamin B12 are added as fortification, likely to mirror the nutrient profile shoppers associate with real fish.
If you're checking this or any packaged product against a specific restriction — soy-free, gluten-free, low-sodium — running the label through the spvegan.com ingredient checker is faster than parsing it yourself, especially with a less familiar ingredient like "gelifier" that can mean different specific compounds depending on the batch.
Is Current Foods Plant-Based Salmon Vegan?
Yes. Current Foods plant-based salmon is 100% vegan. Every listed ingredient — water, pea protein, sunflower oil, bamboo fiber, potato starch, algae oil, lycopene, and the added iron and B12 — is plant- or algae-derived. There's no fish, no fish oil, no gelatin, and no dairy or egg in the formulation. The algae oil is the ingredient most likely to raise a question, since omega-3 supplements are sometimes sourced from fish, but algae oil is specifically the plant-based alternative to fish oil (it's literally where fish get their omega-3s from in the first place), so its presence here is a vegan-friendly choice, not a red flag.
Current Foods markets its entire lineup — tuna, smoked salmon, and this raw-style salmon — as 100% plant-based and free of the mercury, microplastics, and antibiotics that come with an increasingly scrutinized wild and farmed seafood supply. Because the company doesn't manufacture any real seafood alongside its plant-based line, there's no shared-facility or shared-equipment concern the way there sometimes is with brands that straddle both categories.
Nutrition: How Does It Compare to Real Salmon?
Current Foods hasn't published a full, itemized nutrition facts panel as widely as more established grocery brands, so we're not going to invent numbers it hasn't disclosed. What we can say with confidence, based on the ingredient list, is directional: a pea-protein-and-starch base is not going to match the protein density of actual muscle tissue. Real salmon is essentially pure animal protein and fat with nothing else in it; this product is built from a protein isolate, two starches, and two oils, which by nature spreads the calories out differently.
| Metric | Real Atlantic Salmon (cooked, ~3 oz / 85g) | Typical Pea-Protein Plant-Based Salmon |
|---|---|---|
| Protein | ~19–22g | Meaningfully lower — pea protein isolate plus starches dilutes protein density versus whole muscle tissue |
| Omega-3s | ~1.5g EPA/DHA (naturally occurring) | Present via added algae oil, though typically in smaller amounts than a wild-caught fillet |
| Cholesterol | ~50–60mg | 0mg — no animal fat, no cholesterol |
| Fat source | Naturally occurring fish fat | Added sunflower oil and algae oil |
| Mercury/microplastics | Present at trace levels depending on species/source | None — not an animal product |
The honest takeaway: you're not buying this for a protein hit the way you might buy a Beyond Burger. You're buying it for the sushi/poke experience and the ethical and environmental case (no bycatch, no overfishing, no farmed-salmon sea lice and antibiotic issues) while still getting a dose of algae-derived omega-3s you wouldn't get from, say, a veggie burger. If protein density is your priority, pair it with edamame or a scoop of tofu in your poke bowl rather than expecting the fish substitute alone to carry the macros.
Taste and Texture
This is the category where plant-based raw seafood lives or dies, since there's no cooking step to hide behind — no char, no sauce reduction, no melted cheese. It's eaten cold and raw-style, so texture has nowhere to hide.
By most accounts, Current Foods' salmon lands closer to "convincing" than most attempts in this space. Reviewers consistently describe it as smooth and buttery, with a texture that "melts" similarly to a fatty cut of real salmon belly rather than the rubbery or mushy failure mode that sinks a lot of plant-based seafood. The flavor itself is mild, with the oily, slightly salty notes you'd expect from raw salmon rather than an overpowering "fake fish" flavor — sunflower oil and algae oil provide fattiness without a strong fishy taste, which is arguably an advantage for people who don't love overtly fishy flavor to begin with.
Where it's typically served backs this up: sliced thin as nigiri over sushi rice, rolled with cucumber and avocado into maki, cubed into a spicy-mayo poke bowl, or laid across a toasted bagel with vegan cream cheese, capers, and red onion — all applications that lean on a product holding a clean slice and a soft, fatty mouthfeel rather than needing to be seared or sauced to taste good. It's not going to fool a sushi chef doing a blind taste test against bluefin, but for the home cook building a poke bowl or vegan sushi night, it does the job the ingredient list suggests it should.
How It Compares to Other Plant-Based Seafood Brands
Current Foods isn't the only company chasing convincing raw-format plant-based fish, and the approaches differ enough that "best" depends on what you're making.
| Brand | Base Ingredients | Format | Where It's Sold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Current Foods | Pea protein, bamboo fiber, potato starch, algae oil | Raw-style fillet/sashimi, smoked salmon | Select independent grocers, natural food stores, foodservice |
| Konscious Foods (Kikka Sushi tech) | Red algae, konjac root | Ready-made sushi rolls, poke bowls | Whole Foods sushi counters and freezer aisle at select locations |
| Ocean Hugger Foods (Sakana) | Tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, seaweed extract | Sliceable "fillet" for foodservice | Mostly restaurants and college dining, not typical retail shelves |
| Save Da Sea Foods | Plant proteins and oils (formulation varies by product) | Sliced smoked salmon format | Whole Foods and select natural grocers |
The Konscious/Kikka approach leans on red algae and konjac rather than pea protein, and it comes to you as a finished roll or bowl rather than a fillet you slice yourself — more convenient if you want vegan sushi without doing any prep, less flexible if you want to build your own dish. Ocean Hugger's tomato-based Sakana takes a completely different route to a similar visual result and reads more like a marinated vegetable than a protein-forward fish substitute, which is part of why it's stayed mostly in foodservice rather than becoming a retail staple. Current Foods sits in between: a raw fillet format like Ocean Hugger's, but built on a protein isolate base closer to Konscious and the broader plant-based meat category.
Price and Where to Buy
Current Foods hasn't scaled into national grocery chains the way Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods has. Expect to find it at natural food retailers, independent grocers with a strong plant-based section, and a shrinking number of foodservice partners that carry it for sushi and poke applications, rather than a guaranteed spot at your local supermarket. If your usual store doesn't carry it, checking the brand's own retail locator before making a special trip is worth doing, since availability can be regional and inconsistent — this is still a company scaling distribution off a relatively fresh funding round rather than one with mature, nationwide shelf presence.
Who Should Buy This?
This is a strong pick if you already make sushi, poke bowls, or bagel-and-lox spreads at home and want to cut fish out of that specific rotation without giving up the format. It's also a reasonable option for pescatarians transitioning toward a fully plant-based diet, since the taste and texture are close enough to ease that specific craving rather than leaving a gap. It's a weaker pick if you're shopping for a high-protein staple to build meals around — the protein density isn't there compared to actual fish or even to firmer plant-based proteins like tofu or tempeh — or if you're price- and convenience-sensitive and don't live near one of the limited retailers that stock it.
Final Verdict
Current Foods' plant-based salmon does what it sets out to do: it gives home cooks a raw-format, sliceable salmon substitute that holds together, tastes mild and buttery rather than off-puttingly "fake fish," and swaps in algae oil for genuine omega-3s instead of just claiming health halo status. It's let down by limited distribution and a nutrition panel the company hasn't made easy to compare against the fish it's replacing, and it's not a protein powerhouse. But for the specific job of vegan sushi night or a fish-free bagel spread, it's one of the more credible options in a still-small category.
Rating: 7.5/10
