US Consumers Might Get Their First Taste of Transgenic Salmon This Year
Wave723 shares a report from IEEE Spectrum: Only in the past five years has it become possible to raise thousands of healthy fish so far from the shoreline without contaminating millions of gallons of fresh water. A technology called recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) now allows indoor aquaculture farms to recycle up to 99 percent of the water they use. And the newest generation of these systems will help one biotech company bring its unusual fish to U.S. customers for the first time this year. For AquaBounty Technologies [...] this technology couldn't have come at a better time. The company has for decades tried to introduce a transgenic salmon it sells under the brand name AquAdvantage to the U.S. market. In this quest, AquaBounty has lost between $100 million and $115 million (so far). In the final months of 2020, the company will harvest its first salmon raised in the United States and intended for sale there. Thanks to modifications that involved splicing genetic material into its salmon from two other species of fish, these salmon grow twice as fast and need 25 percent less food to reach the same weight as salmon raised on other fish farms. The report says Costco, Target, Trader Joe's, Walmart, Whole Foods, and roughly 80 other North American grocery store chains don't plan to carry it, but that could certainly change. "As of December, AquaBounty was unable to name any restaurants or stores where customers would be able to buy its salmon," the report adds.
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