As the world grapples with food sustainability, cell-based seafood emerges as a promising yet under-the-radar innovation. Unlike its meat counterpart, cultured fish has largely avoided regulatory backlash, possibly due to less entrenched industry opposition.
Despite high costs and production challenges, companies are making waves with premium products like bluefin tuna toro. Investors and scientists alike see a potential market breakthrough by 2025, aiming to offer consumers a sustainable, ethical and healthier alternative to traditional seafood. Will this be the next big wave in food technology? Dive in to find out.
As concerns around overfishing, environmental degradation and food security reach critical levels, the seafood industry faces an urgent need for sustainable alternatives. Traditional fishing methods deplete fish populations, devastate marine habitats and disrupt our underwater ecosystems. Additionally, the global seafood supply chain is riddled with issues like traceability challenges, fraud and unethical labour practices.
In response to these challenges, the seafood sector is witnessing a new wave of innovation propelled by the rise of cell-cultured technologies. Leveraging the capabilities of cellular agriculture, companies worldwide are paving the way for a future where seafood production is not just environmentally sustainable and ethically responsible, but also scalable and robust in adapting to global shifts and demands.
Below, we profile some of the innovative companies leading the charge in the new era of alternative seafood.
Forsea
Where and when: Israel, 2021
Product type: Freshwater eel
Tech: Proprietary organoid technology that enables cells to autonomously differentiate and grow. This technology mimics nature’s tissue formation processes, resulting in cultured seafood products that closely resemble their wild counterparts in taste, texture and nutritional value.
Roee Nir, co-founder and CEO of Forsea, said: “Our organoid technology is revolutionising the way we cultivate seafood, offering a scalable and cost-effective solution to address the challenges facing our oceans”.
Wanda Fish
Where and when: Israel, 2021
Product type: Bluefin tuna toro sashimi
Tech: Patent-pending technology induces native fat formation in bluefin tuna cells and its whole-cut downstream manufacturing process employs a rapid, low-cost and readily scalable production method.
Yaron Sfadyah, VP of business development and marketing at Wanda Fish, said: “The product is sustainable, and of course free of microplastics, mercury and other chemical toxins all-too-commonly found in wild catch”.
BlueNalu
Where and when: US, 2017
Product type: Bluefin tuna toro
Tech: Fish cells sourced from desired species are multiplied in bioreactors with the addition of nutrients such as amino acids, salts, sugars, lipids and vitamins. The cells are then concentrated and formed into a saku block (a Japanese term for sashimi-quality seafood cut into blocks) using standard food industry processes.
Lou Cooperhouse, BlueNalu’s founder, president and CEO, commented: “We focus on species that are difficult to farm-raise, susceptible to contaminants, vulnerable in the wild and are primarily imported”.
E-FISHient Protein
Where and when: Israel, 2020
Product type: Tilapia
Tech: Myosatellite cells that can differentiate into muscle cells, creating fish products that contain essential amino acids and proteins for nutrition. E-FISHient Protein is a collaboration between alt-protein investor BioMeat and Israeli agricultural research centre the Volcani Institute. The company sources its tilapia cells from the Institute’s fish facility.
Dana Levin, E-FISHient Protein’s CEO, told The Cell Base: “We prioritise white fish over premium products to ensure that our solutions are accessible and beneficial to a broader demographic, aligning with our commitment to inclusive and sustainable food systems”.
Atlantic Fish Co
Where and when: US, 2022
Product type: Black sea bass
Tech: Developed proprietary technology to cultivate fish cells that thrive in liquid suspension, focusing on high-performing cell lines of wild-caught species. Atlantic Fish Co uses genetic engineering technology to grow cells in bioreactors before providing them with nutrients for growth.
Doug Grant, CEO of Atlantic Fish Co, said: “We’re focused on premium wild-caught species that are greenhouse gas intensive and can’t be raised easily via aquaculture – species that are also overfished, too expensive and often unavailable to restaurants and consumers”.
Cultured seafood: A deep dive
Like cultivated meat, cultured seafood also begins with the isolation of stem cells from the desired species, which are then cultivated in a nutrient-rich medium. By mimicking natural growth conditions, scientists can produce seafood products that closely replicate the texture, taste and nutritional profile of wild-caught fish. The Cell Base explores.
Advances in bioprocessing techniques, such as the development of serum-free culture media and optimised growth factors, are critical for making the production of cell-based seafood more sustainable and cost-effective.
Additionally, companies are leveraging proprietary technologies, such as organoid formation and hybrid ingredient integration, to enhance the authenticity and quality of the final product.
Israeli start-up Forsea unveiled its cultured eel product in January, in what it claimed to be a ‘world-first’. The company’s organoid technology focuses on helping stem cells form 3D microtissues that spontaneously differentiate into edible cells, just like in nature.
“As such, our tissues are a natural composition of fat, muscle and connective tissue, which ensures similarity in taste and nutritional values of the finished product,” Roee Nir, co-founder and CEO of Forsea, told The Cell Base.
Additionally, Forsea’s technology enables the cell lines to self-organise into tissue structures without the need for scaffold support, simplifying the production process and enhancing scalability.
Californian company BlueNalu is working to commercialise its cell-based bluefin tuna toro. “We are focused on the creation of ‘whole muscle’ centre-of-the-plate product forms – not ground and formed or hybrid products,” Blue Nalu’s Lou Cooperhouse stated.
Cooperhouse explained that by using only cell-cultured ingredients, BlueNalu hopes to ‘honour’ bluefin tuna, providing seafood that is consistent with every purchase – with the same nutritional, functional and sensory characteristics as its conventional counterpart.
Wanda Fish is also working to create bluefin tuna toro, employing a technological process that combines cell biomass, derived from bluefin tuna stem cell lines, with carefully selected plant-based ingredients.
“By integrating muscle and fat cell biomass, we ensure that our product closely mimics the nutritional profile of traditional tuna fillets, being rich in protein and valuable fatty acids like omega-3, EPA and DHA,” Yaron Sfadyah, Wanda Fish’s VP of business development and marketing, explained.
He continued: “Additionally, including plant-based ingredients enhances texture, colour and overall sensory experience, ensuring a high-quality product that satisfies both taste and nutritional requirements.”.
The company uses patent-pending technology to induce native fat formation in bluefin tuna cells, controlling the fat content and composition to emulate the sensory experience of wild-caught tuna.
“Our technology enables us to induce fat accumulation using our myoblast cells to mimic the intramuscular fat of the bluefin tuna toro, enabling us to grow and differentiate the cells in one single bioreactor – this makes the process economic,” Sfadyah added.
Reaching new depths
Scientists have been studying mammalian cell cultures for decades, primarily to explore their potential for medical applications like tissue engineering for organ replacements.
It was not until the rise of the cell-based meat industry in the last decade that there was a significant push to explore the large-scale growth and differentiation of fish or seafood cells. As a result, fish cell cultivation is a relatively new and emerging field with many unknowns.
“The amount of research on cell cultivation of marine animals is far less than with meat – in many ways, we are doing groundbreaking work,” Sfadyah pointed out.
Meanwhile, BlueNalu’s Cooperhouse explained that when the company was founded, fish cell lines had never before been established for commercial applications. “Whereas this technology was initially applied towards beef and poultry, utilising better-known mammalian cell culturing techniques, our team found the cell biology of seafood species to be a completely white space,” he added.
BlueNalu has since developed hundreds of cell lines for multiple finfish species and developed a depth of knowledge about the cultivation of marine fish.
Seafood advantages
While the basic processes of cultivating seafood and mammalian cells are similar, there are several notable differences. Unlike mammalian cells, fish cells have a lower tendency to undergo senescence, which contributes to sustained production efficiency. Additionally, these cells can demonstrate higher resilience to varying temperature and salinity levels, reducing energy requirements significantly compared to cultivated meat production.
“Unlike mammalian or crustacean cells, fish cells possess a remarkable ability to undergo spontaneous immortalisation in culture,” Sfadyah unpacked.
“Another key advantage lies in the temperature tolerance of fish cells that thrive in temperatures close to room temperature. This temperature flexibility significantly reduces operational costs associated with temperature regulation, making our bioprocessing system highly cost-effective and efficient.”
Another advantage of cell-based seafood production is from a regulatory perspective. In the US, one of only two countries in the world where cell-based meat has been approved for sale, there is a dual-agency system in the regulatory approval of cultivated meat, between the Food and Drug Association (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
“In this instance, the FDA is responsible for the pre-market safety evaluations of the cell culture process and cell media, while the USDA oversees production, processing, and labelling standards,” BlueNalu’s Cooperhouse said. “This dual oversight requires companies to navigate coordination between the two agencies.”
He continued: “On the other hand, cell-cultured seafood is solely regulated by the FDA, except for catfish (and other Siluriformes), which fall under USDA regulation.” This means that the pathway to commercial sale in the US could be much faster for cell-based seafood companies, compared to cultivated meat firms.
Through these innovations, the cultivated seafood industry is poised to revolutionise how we source and consume seafood, offering a more ethical and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional fishing practices.
Interview: National Fisheries Institute
In February 2024, a significant milestone was reached as BlueNalu became the first cell-based seafood company to join the National Fisheries Institute (NFI), signalling a transformative moment in the sector’s development. This move underscores the increasing recognition and adoption of innovative seafood production methods within traditional fisheries sectors. Kayla Bennett, NFI’s media and communications manager, elaborates on the implications of this partnership for the industry in an exclusive interview with The Cell Base.
What motivated the NFI to welcome BlueNalu into its organisation?
BlueNalu’s innovative cell-cultured seafood is a gamechanger and aligns with NFI’s mission to get Americans to eat more seafood. At some point, you’re going to have wild-caught, farmed and cell-cultured available in the expanding market.
How does the inclusion of BlueNalu signify a shift in the perception of seafood cultivation within the traditional fisheries sector?
Cell-cultured seafood is not a replacement for traditional methods but a complementary solution. Oceans are fished to the maximum sustainable yield, so we are pleased to see a future with three sustainable methods – wild-caught, farmed and cell-cultured.
Could you elaborate on the benefits and challenges of collaborating with a cell-based seafood company?
Traditional seafood sources are healthy and delicious and good management makes them sustainable, but volumetrically there are limits when feeding a growing planet. Cell-cultured seafood presents an opportunity to produce more seafood for consumers.
In what ways do you envision this collaboration between BlueNalu and the NFI positively impacting sustainable practices within the seafood industry?
Cell-cultured products are not a fix for sustainability challenges, this is about presenting an opportunity to produce more seafood for consumers. Traditional harvesting methods, wild-capture and aquaculture will continue, and sustainable management and practices will keep them operating.
What measures will the NFI undertake to ensure that the integration of cell-based seafood companies aligns with existing regulatory frameworks and standards?
We are already active in this space. In 2021, NFI began collaborating with the Alliance for Meat, Poultry and Seafood Innovation. We submitted comments to the FDA in support of a labelling framework for cell-cultured seafood that fosters transparency, consumer confidence and a level playing field across FDA-regulated products, conventional and cell-cultured alike, that also aligns with longstanding law and policy.
Is there anything else you would like our audience to know?
The approach to the seafood community that companies like BlueNalu have taken is fundamentally different from that taken by plant-based producers. By and large, plant-based amalgam companies sought to challenge seafood for shelf space and attack the very product they were imitating, while confusing consumers. That did not work out well for them. The cell-cultured groups have been upfront about working with the existing sector on things like labelling and they’ve noted their interest in being collaborative
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