video transcript
Expand areaVideo transcript of fish meat from the lab
In the kitchen, there is rarely much fuss about fish fingers – quickly into the pan and that’s the motto.
This is different with this example from Lübeck, because it is a prototype that is unique in Europe: It is fish meat, and yet no fish had to die for it.
The product comes from the laboratory.
The cell biologist Sebastian Rakers has been working on the idea of so-called "cultivated fish meat" for around 15 years.
With good reason: The global hunger for fish has been increasing for years, now reaching around 20.5 kilograms per year and capita.
A billion-dollar business on the one hand, overfishing and the destruction of ecosystems on the other.
OT Sebastian Rakers, Founder Bluu Seafood
"I've been looking at the ocean ecosystem for a long time and I'm also a passionate diver... I have a technology here that I want to pursue."
So could laboratories like this one at Bluu Seafood in Lübeck actually come up with a technical and sustainable solution to the overfishing problem one day?
Representatives of the so-called "cellular agriculture" such as company founder Sebastian Rakers are convinced of this.
The technique of cellular agriculture is basically always the same, regardless of whether chicken, beef or fish meat is to be grown in the laboratory: At the beginning there is the one-off removal of cells, the biopsy.
A single fish is killed for this, so it doesn't work entirely without it either.
OT Sebastian Rakers, Founder Bluu Seafood
»In this muscle meat… these are the stem cells… we want to get to them, we have to dissolve this trade association.«
What is special about fish compared to other animals: the meat is relatively simple and not very firmly structured.
A fish fillet should therefore be easier to "recreate" in the laboratory than, for example, a steak.
The advantages are obvious: If meat could be produced technically on a large scale in this way, it could...
reduce animal suffering
Ethical and ecological problems of factory farming or industrial fishing are eliminated.
save resources
For example, land, feed and water consumption of conventional agriculture
Avoid pollutants
The goal: "Clean Meat" without environmental toxins, such as heavy metals in conventional fish
increase security of supply
The laboratory meat could be produced independently of climatic and geographical factors.
In order to achieve all of this, companies like Bluu Seafood need one step: the stem cells taken from the fish have to multiply in a nutrient liquid, and the meat has to grow independently.
So far, the nutrient medium has often been fetal calf serum, which unborn calves had to die to obtain.
According to Sebastian Rakers, he has developed a purely plant-based alternative that stimulates cell division and growth.
OT Sebastian Rakers, Founder Bluu Seafood
If you look here now, you can see this cell culture medium. This is, so to speak, the nutrient medium with which we feed the cells. And the cells sit down here on the bottom of the dish and are then covered with the medium, so to speak, so that they can grow optimally here. We are now concerned with tailoring this medium in such a way that it is very cost-efficient. That just means that what the cells use up at the end of the day also comes in.
Experts still see many unanswered questions about the new technology, and not just when it comes to “cost efficiency”.
OT Marius Henkel, Professor of Cellular Agriculture TU Munich
In addition to socio-economic points, but also biological basics, the main focus is on scaling up. In other words, how can you transfer what may not yet be quite as efficient in the laboratory on a small scale to industrially relevant processes. With the current state of the art, this is still a very, very big hurdle.
The state of the art looks like this: In the Lübeck laboratory, meat actually grows in the bioreactor, which in principle resembles a caught fish.
However, in a somewhat undefined form and not yet approved as food.
OT Sebastian Rakers, Founder Bluu Seafood
"This is the pure cell biomass... very small amount that goes into product development."
The first products are scheduled to hit the market in 2024, but it is unclear what quantities companies like Bluu Seafood can produce and at what price.
First of all, the fish fingers will probably be available in special restaurants.
It will probably be years before a natural-looking laboratory salmon fillet can be bought in the supermarket.
And much longer before cultured fish and cellular agriculture can actually provide an alternative to overfishing and resource depletion.