Europeans love sushi and would love to have some at home on a regular basis. But they also love convenience, which makes it hard to always have sushi at hand.
That’s the gap that Dutch company The Crushi is hoping to fill with frozen sushi that can be quickly prepared in an oven or air fryer. Another plus is that its sushi are crunchy — hence the name.
Introducing The Crushi: A Revolutionary Approach to Sushi
According to its creators, Crushi’s recipe combines the freshness of sushi with the crispiness of Japanese breadcrumbs, or panko. You could try and make your own version at home, but it wouldn’t have the same shelf life or remain crunchy for much time after deep frying.
The Birth of Crushi: A Restaurant Idea Turned Global Brand
The business itself “started as an idea in my restaurant 10 years ago, when I was asked to bring and sell 30,000 crunchy sushi rolls on a 3-day festival with 60,000 visitors,” said The Crushi’s co-founder Jeroen van de Velde.
Then a restaurant owner in the Netherlands, van de Velde teamed up with Martijn Klein, a regular guest who had become his friend. Klein saw Crushi’s potential, but also the need to avoid copycats.
“Martijn advised me to protect the “Crunchy sushi roll” as a new and innovative product with a brand name and patent,” van de Velde said, adding that Crushi is now fully patented as a premium frozen sushi snack in the EU and U.S., but also in sushi’s home, Japan.
Thanks to this patent, the company can sell its product directly or license it to others, and the small team has big ambitions. “I sold my restaurant business and Martijn quit his job, to go all in on this adventure and make Crushi a global brand.”
Crushi’s Global Ambitions: Expansion and Market Exploration
Crushi is not global yet; it has points of sale to wholesalers in several countries, but because the patent process took time, it mostly has traction in the Netherlands. With intellectual property now secured, van de Velde and his co-founder plan to explore other markets, especially France, where it is mostly targeting food service and retail.
“We currently have one client in France (Disneyland Paris) and we hope to grow [our local] business fast after participating in SIAL Paris 2024,” van de Velde said. “We hope to meet up with new customers, distributors and retailers and explore collaborations.”
One major advantage is that Crushi is a high margin product, and a convenient one, when the personnel shortage in restaurants didn’t subside after the pandemic.
As a result, it makes for an easy snack for food places to match their clients’ tastes; Crushi comes in different flavors and can be served with a fairly wide range of sauces, all of them vegan.
Besides our growing love for finger food, Asian cuisine and all things crispy, it also helps that Crushi connects to other food tech trends such as waste prevention and the air fryer craze.
There’s always the risk that crunchy sushi might be a fad, but the ongoing success of air fryers proves that a hype can be sustained, and The Crushi team is not losing sleep over it. “We are very confident that Crushi will be a huge success, so we don’t have worries that keep us awake,” van de Velde said.