The ISH Company, an SDC portfolio company disrupting the food industry with healthy and sustainable plant-based seafood alternatives has entered a strategic, non-exclusive distribution agreement with Dot Foods – the largest food industry redistributor in North America. 

While ISH currently offers its products in select restaurants and campus dining halls, including Harvard and Amherst, this agreement enables the startup to expand its distribution across the continental U.S. and supply food service companies nationwide. 

“Today’s consumers expect innovative, sustainable products at their fingertips whenever they walk into a food establishment or engage with a food retailer,” said Park Plank, director of business development at Dot Foods. “By making The ISH Company products available to our expansive network of foodservice distributors, we’re ensuring operators can delight consumers with unique, delicious, and environmentally-friendly shrimp alternatives.”

The ISH Company embraces a Whole System Approach, aiming to solve issues related to consumer health, animal welfare and environmental detriment through its product offerings. The startup’s flagship product – Shrimpish – embodies this mentality through using healthy, natural, and sustainable ingredients that mimic the texture and flavour of the animal-based analogue. 

This product offering also creates an opportunity for consumers to decrease carbon emissions without compromising on taste or nutrition; when a food service company purchases 1,000 pounds of Shrimpish instead of shrimp, the reduction in emissions is equivalent to taking almost three cars off the road for an entire year. Despite shrimp’s status as the most popular seafood item in the U.S. its production causes four times more greenhouse gas emissions than beef, creating an outsized impact on the environment that The ISH Company’s offering greatly reduces. 

“At ISH, we’re on a mission to put plant-based seafood on plates worldwide, empowering people to make choices that are healthier for their body, but also better for our planet,” said Christie Fleming, President and Chief Operating Officer at The ISH Company. “By distributing our plant-based seafood products with Dot Foods, we’re making strides in that mission and working towards a future where every restaurant and food retailer provides plant-based seafood options. We look forward to integrating new products with Dot Foods as we continue to innovate in the plant-based food industry.”

As well as making strides in its distribution strategy, The ISH Company is rapidly expanding its line of products and investing in the resources to scale quickly. In January ISH closed a $5 million seed funding round, led by Accelr8 with participation from Stray Dog Capital, bringing the startup’s total funds raised to nearly $10 million. These funds are largely directed towards R&D with the company currently having over 25 products in development – including cod, crab, and lobster alternatives.