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The increasing demand for high-quality sources of protein from the Earth’s several billion people cannot sustainably keep up with the available supply. This leads the industry entrepreneurs to look more into the cell-based sector that has been tremendously growing. Through these emerging technologies, consumers’ appetites can be diverted from wild-caught fish to seafood grown in a lab. Consumption of cultured seafood will significantly decline the fishing of threatened species and industrial fish farming. This cell-cultured technology of producing seafood will provide a great opportunity for humans to maintain the sustainability of the planet.
Cell-based seafood is based on cutting-edge scientific advancements in cell line optimization, medium composition, and bioreactor architecture. Cell culture requires growth media to provide nutrients to proliferate and differentiate cells, and a bioreactor to provide the closed environment to support the growth. Advancement in cultured seafood in the food industry will increase food production with high protein content.
As the global population is increasing rapidly, it is projected that the global population will reach more than 9.8 billion by 2050. This is the major challenge of today’s world to secure sustainable, nutritious, and plant-friendly food supplies. With the increase in the acceptance of plant-based meat, start-up companies are now focusing on different innovative technologies like cell technology, fermentation, and cell lines to produce cost-effective cultured seafood to fulfill consumer demand without harming marine life.
Notable start-ups with advanced fermentation, cell biotechnology based-solutions for the production of seafood are mentioned below:
Bluu Biosciences (Berlin, Denmark)
Blue Biosciences is a seafood start-up in Europe that creates cultivated seafood from the fish cells.
Bluu Biosciences cell biotechnology and non-GMO immortalized cell lines are used for the production of cost-effective seafood. These cell lines can multiply multiple times without performing a new biopsy, which helps in scaling up the production process. The company has raised USD 8.2 million in a pre-seed round of financing from investors including Manta Ray Ventures, Norrsken VC, Be8, CPT Capital, and Lever VC.
Sea-Stematic (Johannesburg, South Africa)
Sea-Stematic is a privately owned company involved in the manufacturing of fish through cultivated fish lines.
The company has partnered with leading scientists and expert stakeholders to achieve this sustainably to deliver great-tasting, quality, affordable and nutritional cultivated fish. The company is working with its team of scientists to develop and bring cultivated seafood to the emerging cultured protein market.
Avant Meat (Singapore, Hong Kong)
Avant Meat is a developer of cultivated fish protein products by utilizing advanced cell technology.
The company has recently collaborated with Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI) to build a Joint Research Laboratory for Cultivated Fish Bioprocessing in Biopolis, Singapore, to develop and optimize solutions for scalable production of cultivated fish cells. This collaboration will help the company in the cost-effective production of food-grade cultivated fish.
Aqua Cultured Foods (Chicago, United States)
Aqua Cultured Foods is a Chicago-based start-up that creates whole muscle cut seafood alternatives by the use of microbial fermentation.
The company aims to create seafood analogs such as fillets and pieces of fish that look similar to real seafood. Aqua Cultured Foods is looking into its intellectual property protection, with three patents pending for its methods, cultures, and usage. It has raised total funding of USD 0.20 million in a pre-seed round in April 2021 by Big Idea Ventures. The company is planning to offer its first commercial products early next year.
Finless Foods (California, United States)
Finless Food is a developer of cellular-agriculture technologies to produce marine animals for seafood.
The company is currently focusing on creating bluefin tuna from cells by utilizing a nutrient medium that includes salts, sugar, proteins, and other nutrients in a bioreactor to grow and multiply to increase the mass. The company offers sustainable seafood without the environmental devastation or health hazards of traditional fishing and aquatic farming. The company is planning to bring its cell-cultured tuna to market.
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