Israeli cultured seafood start-up has tested its cultivated freshwater eel unagi, holding the prototype's first official tasting.
This week, at Tel Aviv’s ‘A’ restaurant, 40 guests gathered to taste dishes made using Forsea’s cell-based iteration of unagi kabayaki – grilled fresh eel on a bed of aromatic rice – which was first unveiled in January.
Attendees included investors, journalists and leaders in the food industry, as well as representatives from the Japanese embassy and various Japanese food companies based in Israel.
Forsea’s patent-protected organoid tech involves creating the ideal environment for fish cells to spontaneously assemble themselves into 3D tissue structures with their natural composition of fat, muscle and connective tissue. This method is designed to echo the natural growth process of these tissues in a living fish.
This method of cell-cultivation bypasses the scaffolding stage and reduces the dependence on growth factors, which makes the process highly scalable, raising its commercial viability as well price parity with traditionally aqua-farmed eel meat.
Roee Nir, CEO and co-founder of Forsea, said: “Forsea’s unique organoid technology has the potential to overcome many of the industry bottlenecks in bringing cultivated meat to the consumer plate. Since the start of the year, we made significant advancements in improving our cell lines. We have also been working diligently to enhance our recipes. This event was a great opportunity for us to present our unprecedented achievements to partners and industry stakeholders.”
Israeli chef Yuval Ben Neriah, specialist in Asian cuisine helped prepare the finished product to capture the authentic flavour and sensory attributes of traditional Japenese freshwater eel.
Neriah commented: “As a chef who spent many years tantalising diners with fine Asian cuisine, this project with Forsea has been particularly exciting as it marks my first venture into future food and the world of cell-cultured seafood and its resonating sustainability message.”
“The feedback from the diners was indeed uplifting. Several remarked that they wouldn’t have guessed that the unagi was cell-cultivated had they not been informed.”
Takahashi Seiichiro, Japan’s Deputy Chief of Mission to Israel, concluded: congratulated Forsea’s achievements “I would like to thank Forsea for choosing eel, an endangered species but indispensable for the Japanese and Asian diet. While we Japanese have been eating eel for more than 5000 years, we understand that cultivating eel is no simple task. Therefore, I believe that introducing the first cell-cultured eel is the accomplished result of great comprehensive corporate efforts.”
Forsea projects that its debut product will be primed for commercial rollout by 2026 and is currently forging connections with strategic partners in Japan.
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