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Since the breakthrough approval of cultured meat in Singapore and, shortly after, in the U.S., the idea of growing food items from cells in a petri dish has grown in scope, from the creation of lab-grown dairy to lab-grown fish.
The latter is a slightly more recent concept that could be about to take off, as several startups are now choosing to focus on this particular area within the food tech industry. In this article, we explore the ins and outs of cultivated fish, which is likely to hit the shelves in the next few years in an attempt to overcome issues such as overfishing and an increased demand for seafood.
Table of contents
How is lab-grown fish made and what are its advantages?
Lab-grown fish is essentially produced by extracting a small sample of cells from wild-caught fish and cultivating it in a bioreactor that is filled with a liquid known as “growth medium”, which is rich with sugars, minerals, amino acids, and proteins designed to give the fish cells the nutrition they need to multiply.
One of the main challenges that lab-grown fish startups have encountered is keeping cells from sticking to the sides of the tanks, where they naturally gravitate. Dr. Christian Dammann, chief technology officer of cultivated fish company Bluu Seafood, explained to Technology Networks that ideally you want to have suspension cultures, but most animal cells do not like that, preferring to be attached to something.
Bluu Seafood found its own way around this by developing its own micro-materials to keep its fish cells stuck together. “We created spheroids,” said Dammann. “So instead of adhering to a surface, they adhere to each other. And that seems to keep them happy. Then we grow them in a bioreactor.”
Unfortunately, this then led to another challenge, in which the spheroids get bigger and bigger until the nutrients cannot get in and everything dies.
“So, we developed a method that can keep the spheroids in a certain size, below 200 microns. That’s the diffusion limit, basically,” said Dammann. “So that is what we do; we take the cell lines from the cultured dishes, put [them] in a solution, then they go into the bioreactor, we harvest the cells and then use methods that are known from the food industry – extrusion machines, mixers.”
These machines fortify the fish cells with plant ingredients like starch proteins, providing the cells with a scaffold for structure.
But what exactly are the benefits of producing lab-grown fish, other than for sustainability purposes?
Dammann explained to Technology Networks: “So, [the products] have no bones, no skin, no scales or brain; you don’t have to throw anything away; whatever we put in, it’s being transformed into biomass, and you eat 100% of it.”
He added that it is also much faster to create. “I mean, these cells grow exponentially. If you look at a fish or a cow, how long does it take to go from 10 kilos to 100 kilos? In cell culture, you can do that in a few days.”
Plus, the nutritional benefits of normal fish, such as omegas, are maintained, but without possible allergens, microplastics, mercury, or other contamination that affects wild-caught and farmed fish.
Lab-grown fish startup companies coming to the fore
Several lab-grown fish startups have emerged in recent times, betting that consumers will gradually move away from wild-caught and farmed seafood due to health concerns over microplastic pollution in our oceans, as well as concerns surrounding the unsustainability of overfishing.
A few of these companies have been making considerable progress in developing their alt-seafood products, expanding their resources, and getting ready to bring these products to the market.
For example, German-based Bluu Seafood, which mixes its lab-grown fish with plant-based ingredients to make food items like fish balls and fish fingers that are easier and more cost-effective to produce than whole fish, raised €16 million ($17.3 million) in series A funding in June last year to advance its technology and market launch of its products. Since then, it has opened the doors to Europe’s first cultivated fish pilot plant in Hamburg, leaving behind its lab-scale workspace for 2,000 square meters of customized research, production, and office space to develop and produce its fish products. Plus, with access to new fermenters, the company will now also be able to cultivate muscle, fat, and connective tissue cells from Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout, producing much larger quantities.
Another startup making a name for itself in the field is Israeli company Wanda Fish, having recently unveiled its first product: cultivated bluefin tuna toro sashimi. This is a high-end product, as it aims to take on the same attributes as its wild-sourced counterpart. Tackling scalability and high costs is why the company chose to develop bluefin tuna, which is one of the most expensive seafood products that can sell for as much as $100 for a 1kg serving. The company claims that its cultivated version achieves the same marbling as the real thing and has the same nutritional benefits, notably protein and omega-3 fatty acids. After raising $7 million in seed funding in October 2023, Wanda Fish hopes to kickstart a series A round later this year to further scale up its upstream and downstream manufacturing processes with in-house and outsourced facilities.
Meanwhile, Singapore-based Umami Bioworks has also been hard at work when it comes to expanding its cultivated seafood business. Just in the last few months, the company has partnered with two Indian organizations aimed at accelerating research and scalability for its cultivated seafood, opened a new office in Tokyo, announced a partnership with Japanese company Maruha Nichiro to build the infrastructure of Japan’s cultivated seafood industry, and expanded its operations to the U.K., as it seeks a path to the European market.
Notable mentions in the sector also go out to U.S.-based BlueNalu, which is launching its first product, bluefin tuna toro, in premium food service establishments, including sushi and fine dining restaurants, and Hong Kong startup Avant Meats, which announced in March that it is planning a 30-fold expansion in its capacity in Singapore to make cultivated fish, namely groupers, snappers, and eels, after a positive response from consumers at a tasting event.
All of these companies are now in the final stages of bringing their cultivated seafood to the market, and will soon be seeking regulatory approval for their products.
Can lab-grown fish save our oceans?
Ultimately, the overall theme spearheading cultured fish is, what can we do to help save our planet?
Like cultivated meat, lab-grown fish has attracted high levels of investment from those focused on sustainability issues, animal suffering, and technology being able to play its part in tackling global food security. There is also an overall increased awareness among the public regarding the unsustainable production of seafood, including the overfishing of wild-caught fish, the unsavory conditions that farmed fish are kept in, and the accumulation of microplastics and heavy metals in both wild and farmed seafood.
The main issue driving the unsustainability of fish consumption is the fact the demand for seafood is simply too high. Justin Kolbeck, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Wildtype, another cultivated fish company, told Technology Networks: “I think demand is rising and supply is now becoming increasingly constrained, and it makes sense. Where does our seafood come from? We have wild-caught, and we have farmed. Wild-caught is a fixed supply, more or less. There’s some seasonal fluctuation in wild catches, but, for the most part, we’ve reached the biological limit of wild catch for the types of fish that we eat regularly.”
“Then, on the fish farming side, there are also supply constraints. In the case of salmon, there are only so many fjords – areas where you can fish farm,” continued Kolbeck. “The combination of these things has led to an environment in which we have rapidly growing interest in people eating healthier seafood – driven largely by a lot of consumption in Asia – combined with relatively fixed supplies.”
Seren Kell, head of science and technology at the Good Food Institute (GFI), a non-profit think tank that has a particular focus on the potential of plant-based meat alternatives and cultivated protein, told Just Food Magazine that Europe imports three times more seafood than it produces, meaning that there is a pressing need to find alternatives. “Cultivated seafood can help meet demand locally and sustainably, enabling governments to rebuild overfished stocks while reducing by-catch and discards.”
A big push to bring cultivated fish and meat to the market, but challenges remain
Given the supply pressure on the fishing industry, the governments of some countries are making a real push to try and bring cultured meat and fish forward. As the first country to approve cultured meat, Singapore is the perfect example of a nation that is willing to embrace these products. The government has been actively promoting the alt-protein sector and, for many cultivated meat startups, the country is one of the first places they will seek regulatory approval, in the knowledge that there is a keen appetite for their products there, not just from the government but also from consumers.
“Singapore has really led the world on this kind of technology,” said Kolbeck in the aforementioned Technology Networks report. “It’s a relatively small city-state that imports almost all of its food. They have, let’s say, a significant vulnerability if there’s significant political instability in the region. They’ve set a goal of having 30% of their food supply created domestically by the year 2030, and that has driven significant investment in and support of alternative protein companies, both in Singapore and elsewhere.”
And governments elsewhere are also starting to push for change. For example, in January 2024, in India, the government-established ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute announced that it would be undertaking a pioneering effort to develop lab-grown fish to propel India forward in the cultivated seafood field. In September, the New Zealand government announced that it would be investing $6 million into a five-year initiative to develop cultivated fish products.
Additionally, the European Union (EU) launched a research project in January 2024 called Feasts. Funded by the Horizon program, the aim of the project is to deliver a “comprehensive, unbiased knowledge base about cultured meat and seafood and their place in the food system.” This is a suggestion that the EU is taking the sustainability of our food industry seriously, and could signify good news for cultivated meat and fish startups that wish to receive regulatory approval for their products in the EU.
On the other hand, there has been some considerable opposition to the marketing of lab-grown products. Last November, Italy became the first country to officially ban the production, sale, and importation of cultivated meat, with the vote being seen as a victory for the country’s agricultural sector and Italian cultural traditions. Even in the U.S., which approved its first lab-grown meat product in June last year, there have been pushbacks; earlier this year, Florida and Alabama became the first two states to ban the sale of cultivated meat and seafood. According to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, this decision was made to fight back against the “global elite’s plan” to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish.”
Another challenge that has faced the lab-grown meat field is the cost of creating these types of products. But, for lab-grown fish, there is potentially a narrower price gap between cultivated products and the real thing. Bluu Seafood told the Guardian that it estimates a portion of its fish balls will cost about $20 in restaurants, compared with $15 for the regular version. Comparatively, a tasting session that allowed diners to try cultivated chicken at Washington DC’s China Chilcano restaurant, cost $70, whereas a Peruvian-style roasted organic whole chicken at the same restaurant cost $44.
This potential for a narrower pricing gap could be a real advantage for lab-grown fish, as consumers would also be more willing to try it if it costs almost the same as the real thing.
When can we expect lab-grown fish to reach the market?
So, when can we actually expect lab-grown fish to reach the market? Very soon is the answer to that question.
Wanda Fish is preparing to commercialize its cultivated fish and has regulatory applications planned for 2025, with Israel, the U.S., and Asia as potential entry points.
Meanwhile, both BlueNalu and BluuSeafood have said that they expect to launch in Singapore first. Cornelius Lahme, who heads up the marketing and communications operation at Bluu Seafood, told Just Food Magazine: “If everything works well we will have at the end of this year or the beginning of next year an approval for cultivated fish in Singapore.”
BlueNalu was less willing to provide timeframes, though. Lou Cooperhouse, co-founder, president, and CEO of BlueNalu told Just Food Magazine: “While we can’t speculate on timelines, we can share that in the near-term, BlueNalu is focused on continuing our scale-up journey, getting regulatory approval in the U.S., Singapore, and additional nations around the world, and then launching our products into commerce within selected restaurants.”
So, with several companies now in the final stages and preparing regulatory approval, we can possibly expect to see lab-grown fish hit our shelves by next year. But will consumers be willing to buy it, and can it really save our oceans? Only time will tell.
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