[Animals] Europe’s First Cultivated Fish Products Have Arrived

[Amaterasu イタチ]

 

German-based food tech company Bluu Seafood has revealed Europe’s first market-ready products made from cultivated fish cells. 

Bluu Seafood’s fish fingers and fish balls contain cultivated fish cells as the main ingredient and have been enriched with plant proteins to optimize cooking behavior and texture. They will soon enter the regulatory approval process across global markets.

"With the completion of our first products, we can demonstrate visible and edible results after less than two years of being operational,” said Bluu Seafood’s founder and CEO, Dr Sebastian Rakers. “This officially makes us the first company in Europe to produce cultivated fish. We are now working closely with regulatory authorities to clear the way for market launch and focus on scaling."
By combining cell and food technology, Bluu Seafood is striving to offer a solution to the animal cruelty and growing ocean devastation caused by industrial fishing and farming.

To create its cultivated products, Bluu Seafood started with a “one-time” fish biopsy that did not harm or take the life of the animal. It then developed full fish cell lines in a lab-setting using bioreactors. This technology also removes the need for additional cell samples, providing real fish meat without farming, catching, or killing animals.

"That is the amazing thing about 'immortalized' cells - while 'normal' cells double for, let's say, 20 times and then stop, the immortalized cells keep on doubling - theoretically forever," Bluu co-founder Simon Fabich told TechCrunch.
Bluu Seafood targets initial approval and market launch in Singapore by the end of 2023, as the regulatory process there is already well-defined. The company will also apply for approval in the US, the UK, and the EU.

In addition to fish balls and fish fingers, Bluu Seafood has also developed first prototypes of complex products such as fillets and sashimi. These are made using animal serum-free growth media and are based on proprietary, non-GMO trout and salmon cell lines.

“From a product perspective, the structure of fish meat is easier to achieve than the more complex mammalian meat structure — think salmon fillet versus steak,” explained Fabich.

“We are working in parallel on more complex products such as fish fillet and sashimi, of which prototypes already exist,” said Fabich. “But those are without a doubt harder to scale, and it will take more time to achieve price parity with the conventional product.”

 

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