When Gunnar Gerth-Hansen goes fishing, he takes a boat out to sea.
When Sebastian Rakers wants to eat fish, he goes to the lab.
Both men live on the Baltic Sea - but their methods of getting fish could not be more different.
Rakers is co-founder of the start-up Bluu Seafood, which is working in Lübeck on the development of so-called in-vitro fish, i.e. real fish grown from stem cells.
Gerth-Hansen, on the other hand, as a fishing captain, spent years sailing the Baltic Sea with his cutter called »Tümmler« and caught herring and cod.
The problem: The fish stocks in the Baltic Sea have been shrinking for years - there are hardly any fishermen who can make a living from their work.
There is currently a de facto ban on fishing for herring and cod in the Baltic Sea.
Scientists, fishermen and environmental organizations have been arguing about the causes of the dwindling fish population for a long time without a clear answer.
Overfishing, over-fertilization, the climate crisis, recreational fishing, seals and cormorants - all factors come together and sometimes reinforce each other.
It is unclear whether the fish stocks in the Baltic Sea will ever recover.
Enlarge image
Fisherman Gunnar Gerth-Hansen at the wheel of his ferry in the Burger inland lake
Photo: Imre Balzer
One solution could be the in vitro fish developed by Rakers and his colleagues: "I see our fish as a contribution to reducing the pressure on fish stocks and thereby enabling coastal fishing again," says the marine biologist.
In this way, the stocks could recover and sustainable fishing could be possible again.
This episode of SPIEGEL Daily deals with the question of which fish we will eat in the future.
The in-vitro method could contribute to supplying humanity with healthy proteins despite overfished seas - but it still faces major challenges.
We hear how the method works, what opportunities and obstacles there are and when the first fish fingers from Sebastian Rakers could be in the refrigerated section next to the fish from the Baltic Sea.
Will the lab fish even replace wild-caught fish?
And what does the cutter captain say about the alternative?
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