San Francisco Startup Hopes to Open Sushi Bar Serving Lab-Grown Salmon

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on a startup named Wildtype that hopes to open a unique sushi bar this fall serving salmon grown in a lab: Like other alternative meat companies, Wildtype hopes it can eventually produce enough fish to be sold at grocery stores and to be served in dishes at Bay Area restaurants... Companies like Wildtype fall into the category of what's known as cell-based agriculture, where instead of plant-based alternatives, animal cells are used to create cuts of meat in a lab. In the case of Wildtype, the company is still working with the same salmon cells it acquired a few years ago to create fish in its lab. These salmon cells are then fed nutrients in the tank before they are harvested and affixed to plant-based structures that enable the cells to grow into a particular cut of the fish. From the cell stage to harvesting, it can take between three weeks to three months, said Elfenbein. Conventional fish farming can often take upwards of a year before the fish can be harvested... The company is still working to get approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to open its sushi bar to the public, though Kolbeck is hopeful that might happen by the end of this year. Unlike plant-based meat substitutes like Impossible Foods and Beyond Beef, which have skyrocketed in popularity in recent years, cell-based, lab-grown meat products have yet to be approved for mass consumption by the FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Bay Area companies like Eat Just, Wildtype and Berkeley's Upside Foods are among a growing number of companies nationwide looking to make lab-grown meat go mainstream in an effort to counter the environmental impacts of traditional meat production. In December last year, the Singapore government approved the sale of Eat Just's lab-grown chicken, making it the first country in the world to approve such meat consumption on a commercial scale... Wildtype hasn't been able to mass-produce quite yet. The Dogpatch production facility is hoping to produce 50,000 pounds per year in the near future, with plans to expand to 200,000 pounds per year in a larger space down the road, Kolbeck said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

from Slashdot https://ift.tt/36cmF4F

Share on FacebookPlus on Google+

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER