Imagine dining on salmon with no worries about mercury, toxic metals or plastics. Or concerns about dwindling fish stocks. Or, from a food safety viewpoint, about contamination from salmonella or Listeria or other foodborne bacteria. Not to mention that no salmon actually had to be killed for the fish to get on your plate. Also, and no bones, skin or entrails.
Wishful thinking? Not really — at least looking into the future — now that food-tech company Wildtype, based in San Francisco, has received a letter from the Food and Drug Administration saying that it has no questions about whether its cultivated salmon is “as safe as comparable foods.”
“Based on the data and information presented . . . we have no questions at this time about Wildtype’s conclusion that foods comprising or containing cultured coho salmon cell material resulting from the production process … are as safe as comparable foods produced by other methods,” the FDA memo reads.
Also from FDA: “We did not identify a basis for concluding that the production process as described would be expected to result in food that bears or contains any substance or microorganism that would adulterate the food.”
Meat and fish made in a lab are often referred to as “cultivated” or “cultured meat,” or “lab meat.” Some opponents refer to it as “fake meat.”
A first for fish
In winning FDA’s thumbs up, the company joins Upside Foods and Good Meat, two companies with permission to sell lab-grown meat, in those cases chicken, in the United States.
Bottomline, even though Wildtype is one of several recently founded companies producing “cultivated” fish meat, it has become the first cultivated seafood product to be approved for sale in the United States.
As for nutrition, Wildtype scientists say the company’s final product has the same amount of healthy omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids as traditional salmon, while avoiding the risk of mercury, antibiotics and parasite contamination.
Also, according to an article in Popular Science, the company’s salmon is noteworthy to consumers because of its specific cut of salmon, which is called “saku,’ the Japanese name for a block of seafood that can be eaten raw as sushi or sashimi. Both are popular with diners.
Sashimi is slices of raw, high-quality fish. Although sushi uses sashimi, it must also include vinegar rice for it to be considered sushi. Also, sushi can add cooked ingredients, while sashimi uses only raw fish, seafood or protein.
When injecting trade issues into the picture, Wildtype’s salmon is made in the USA, particularly important when considering the current seafood trade imbalance. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, imports of all seafood consumed in the United States accounted for up to 75 percent to 90 percent of the total.
Then, too, seafood demand is projected to increase because of an ever-expanding human population and growing affluence. As such, lab-grown fish could lessen the burden on the fishing and fish farming industries, according to Wildtype, as well as mitigate concerns about food contamination.
Food safety
The company’s salmon is made in a sterile environment with pharmaceutical equipment. That, in turn, means there will be less potential for pathogens such as Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli to contaminate the fish.
Another plus for food safety is that there’s no slaughter involved, which means no chance of the edible flesh being contaminated by entrails.
There will also be less handling and by fewer people, further decreasing the chance of contamination.
Then, too, transit time will be shorter compared to transportation of wild caught and farm-raised fish.
Out in the marketplace
Wildtype’s salmon is currently being served at the popular Haitian restaurant Kann in Portland, OR. Plans are to introduce it in four more restaurants, one of them in the near future in Austin, TX.
“We take pride in the ingredients we utilize,” said Kann’s James Beard award-winning chef and author, Gregory Gourdet. “Introducing Wildtype’s cultivated salmon to our menu hits the elevated and sustainable marks we want our menu to offer guests who share a similar value system to ours.”
The menu at Kann tells diners: “Introducing the world’s first cultivated salmon. Be the first in the world to taste the future of sustainable food.”
In developing the technology to create this type of salmon, Wildtype’s goal has been to create a sustainable solution for a growing global demand for seafood.
The word “sustainable” comes into play here considering how fish stocks — some of them salmon — in many parts of the world are declining because of overfishing.
On its website Wildtype refers to the technology involved to develop its salmon as “a new source of seafood.”
“Seafood without the sea,” it proclaims.
How do they do it?
To make its cultivated salmon, Wildtype’s scientists collect living cells from Pacific salmon and grow them in cell cultivators that mimic the inside of a wild fish—controlling factors like temperature, pH and nutrients..
After harvesting them, the team adds some plant-based ingredients to make the block of cells taste, feel and look like salmon fillets.
But this is not “plant based” salmon, nor is it genetically modified salmon.
While the U.S. Department of Agriculture has the responsibility of regulating lab-grown meat, the FDA is solely responsible for most lab-grown seafood.
Challenges now and ahead
Even though there are ongoing efforts to boost the production of cultivated seafood, the cost of the media used to grow the cells in and the cost of the equipment, as well as the need to significantly improve productivity to reach commercial scale, are a challenge.
As such, more research is needed to scale up the production to the point that most consumers can actually afford to buy cultivated fish.
Affordability is an important issue in this. Currently it’s primarily upscale diners, not “regular folk,” who can afford it. For example, on Kann’s menu, the price for a serving of Wildtype salmon is $32.
Legal storms
Meanwhile, storms are brewing on the legal front. Texas has joined Indiana, Nebraska, Montana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida by banning lab-grown meat.
The Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association warns that Texas consumers need to be protected “from being a science experiment as companies seek to profit from selling cell-cultured protein with no long-term health studies.”
On the other side of the legal coin, UPSIDE Foods, which has won U.S. government approval for its lab-grown meat products, has sued Florida over the that state’s ban. A federal judge wants to hear the case and has denied Florida’s motion to toss it.
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