New fish sticks are coming out of the bioreactor
Fish sticks almost like the original, but made in the lab? The start-up Bluu Seafood from Berlin wants to make it happen.
The "Fish Fingers" from the lab.
(Bild: Bluu Bioscience)
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Vegan food is trending. Food consisting only of plant-based raw materials is supposed to be more sustainable, healthier and more climate-friendly, more and more people believe - and they are also willing to spend more money on it.
Fish from the laboratory
But many of the veggie food products currently flooding the market try to imitate animal foods more badly than good - vegan "meat", vegan "cheese", vegan "milk" or even vegan "eggs". In order to perfect the taste experience, the industry unfortunately often makes intensive use of the food chemistry toolbox.
Cultivated protein from the laboratory could be a solution here. It is similar - at least according to the researchers - to what is known from real animals, except that the desired muscle cells grow in the petri dish and not in the body of a living animal. Burgers and steaks are already available here, although unfortunately not quite cheap. But what about vegan fish? A start-up from Berlin now wants to become active in this area.
Three types of fish plus one of their own
The company Bluu Seafood would like to reproduce various popular edible fish via cell lines. These include Atlantic pollock, rainbow trout, carp and even their own breed called "Nova Bluu". The first three are often grown in not uncontroversial breeding farms, which could be done much better in the laboratory.
This "Cultivated Seafood" was developed in cooperation with Fraunhofer researchers. Company boss Dr Sebastian Rakers previously worked in the field of marine biotechnology and cell technology at the Fraunhofer EMB in Lübeck and has been working on aquatic cell technology for ten years. Now the technology should finally be feasible.
Immortal cell lines
The first product of the company founded in 2020, which was initially called Bluu Biosciences before it focused entirely on the fish sector, is to be Fish Fingers - small Fish Balls are also planned. Both products would have the advantage of being in a delicious dough coating. Unfortunately, the product itself is not 100 per cent just fish: in addition to the fish cells grown in the laboratory and the ones that continue to grow in the bioreactor, the product is to be enriched with plant proteins. This is to preserve the usual taste and consistency during cooking.
However, Bluu Seafood does not manage entirely without living fish: In order to create the cell lines, a biopsy is first performed on the animals. Fortunately, this does not end fatally. Once obtained, the cell lines are supposed to be "immortal", further biomass is no longer necessary. Bluu Seafood last raised eight million euros for the idea in 2021 - quite little compared to competitors from the USA, who sometimes collect 100 million US dollars. The company is currently working on approval for its products as food. The planned markets are Europe and the USA; according to a report on the portal "Trendingtopics", Singapore is the first to go.
(bsc)
