Fish from a bioreactor
Startup Finless Foods will start selling tuna from a test tube in 2020
Yulia Krasilnikova, Hi-tech+
An American startup intends to replace natural fish in sushi with cultured tuna. Finless Foods promises to bring the product to the market in two years, although so far the cost of minced fish from the bioreactor reaches $ 12,000 per kilogram.
According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a third of the fishing areas are depleted or are under restoration. Many varieties of fish, including tuna, are kept in a polluted environment, and microplastic and mercury particles are found in the organisms of fish intended for food.
Finless Foods plans to transfer fish production from reservoirs to laboratories. Moreover, the startup will not grow marine animals for subsequent destruction. Instead, cells will be taken from a living individual, and then cultured in sterile conditions. As a result of the separation and reproduction of cells, the components of artificial meat will be formed.
It will not be possible to grow a whole tuna steak, but from small pieces it will be possible to form a cutlet or minced meat for negitoro, a traditional Japanese tuna dish.
According to Nikkei Asian Review, the startup will start selling tuna meat in 2020. Minced meat will be the first to enter the market, because so far Finless Foods has not been able to achieve a dense and whole structure like real meat. As soon as the technology is debugged, the tuna from the test tube can be used to make sashimi.
The company admits that it focuses on the luxury products market. But even with this calculation, Finless Foods will have to seriously reduce the cost. In 2017, the production of artificial tuna cost the startup $38 thousand per kilogram. Since then, the costs have decreased three times – up to $ 12 thousand. The company promises to further improve production processes.
The head of Finless Foods, Michael Selden, is confident that by 2020 fish cutlets from a test tube will cost about the same as most natural analogues on the market.
Selden plans to get permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and then switch to the Asian market.
In addition to tuna, Finless Foods plans to produce other types of fish. In September, the team managed to grow meat based on carp cells.
According to the founder of the startup, consumers will quickly get used to cultured meat. Beer and some snacks are also developed in laboratories and then produced in factory conditions, he points out. "Fish meat from a test tube is no different in this sense," Selden is sure.
The company has money for development – in June it raised $3.5 million from the venture capital firm Draper Associates and other investors. However, Finless Foods will not only have to adjust the technology of growing artificial fish, but also to push competitors.
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