Could Lab-Grown Salmon Be The Future Of Fish?

this salmon fillet didn't come from the

sea

it was grown in a lab to look just like

the real thing

there are a lot of questions that people

have number one question is what does it

taste like

salmon is one of the most popular fish

in the u.s

and it usually comes from massive farms

like this

which can cause all kinds of

environmental problems

growing it from cells might one day

offer an alternative

it's going to be a long very hard

journey to get there

foods made this way aren't yet approved

for sale in the u.s or anywhere in the

world except singapore

and even if they were are consumers

likely to see them on a menu anytime

soon

we went to san francisco to try and find

out

for thousands of years salmon were

abundant in what's now north america

but in 1866 european settlers in the

pacific northwest started preserving

salmon by canning it

it was the start of a massive commercial

fishing operation

soon fisheries were catching millions of

pounds of salmon every year

for a while the supply of salmon seemed

limitless but it wasn't

in fact wild salmon populations were

already declining by the late 1800s and

less than a century later some were at

risk of disappearing forever is there a

possibility of seven becoming extinct at

this rate oh there's no question about

it

the idea of farming salmon came about in

the late 60s

by the early 2000s around two-thirds of

the salmon americans were eating was

grown on farms

but that industry comes with its own

problems

farmed salmon are prone to parasite

infestations which can spread to wild

populations and salmon feed is made

partially from other fish

roughly 12 percent of all fish caught

every year are turned into feed for fish

farms and that has a huge impact on

global fish populations especially in

places like peru and senegal

we just need another source of fish and

and that's what we're here to provide

[Music]

all right this is arya elfinbine and

justin kolbeck they co-founded wild type

back in 2016.

last one

their goal was to figure out how to grow

a piece of salmon from cells

i started to think about a lot of my

background in stem cell biology and

wondered do we need animals to

have meat

one last piece it's yours wild type

isn't yet letting cameras inside the lab

where it grows the salmon because the

process is still in development

instead arya explained how it all works

so the first step for us was to

basically isolate the cells

wild type got the cells from coho and

chinook salmon

the cells go into a steel tank like the

kind you'd see in a brewery with

nutrients like sugars and amino acids

the tanks have the right temperature ph

and oxygen level for the cells to grow

and replicate the same way they would

inside of fish but what comes out

afterward still looks nothing like a

piece of salmon that's where something

they call scaffolds come in so if the

product is going to be a block of salmon

we'll create scaffolds that are those

same dimensions and then the cells will

grow into those dimensions

they also help the cells mimic the

textures of muscle and fat the cells

attach to the scaffolds and grow into a

shape similar to the salmon fillet you

would buy at a store

and that over time becomes the final

product the growing process takes four

to six weeks

compare that to the roughly three years

it takes to raise farmed salmon

if it's still hard to wrap your head

around how this is possible you're not

alone

arya and justin introduced us to adam

tortosa a restaurant owner and chef he

works with wild type to test how

lab-grown salmon looks tastes and feels

in real dishes it's just crazy that

they're growing sam and me to be honest

he says it finally looks and feels

pretty close to the real thing

i think if you like blindfolded me and

like had me cut i couldn't tell the

difference

this one i would dip in the soy sauce

but it wasn't always this way they

walked into the restaurant and brought

prototype one it was

kind of wet salmon jerky maybe

now he says even the taste is close it

has the same mouthfeel same fattiness

of course we had to try it for ourselves

the flavor was mild but it really did

have a texture that was close to salmon

i would be happy to serve it to guests

right now

adam's restaurant is the type of place

where wild type hopes to see its salmon

one day

when you go to the sushi bar you're sort

of in an exploratory mindset

the idea was if we're going to introduce

a new way to make this product why not

introduce it in a place where people are

already kind of seeking out a new

experience

the company decided to focus on raw

salmon for its initial product launch

when we decided this was the way we

wanted to go we had a lot of people on

the team thinking like couldn't we start

with something a little easier because

it was very audacious

somehow when i make cut rolls

they look

not as good as this i can never get it

quite right like you can taste oceanic

notes not the sort of like funky fish

flavor

these fancy dishes are

hard to eat from right

this is just one starting point for the

wide variety of different flavors that

this product is capable of

but there are still two big problems

the first is that it isn't even legal to

sell cell cultured foods in the u.s

that's because the fda is still figuring

out how to regulate foods that are made

like this and that process just takes

time right to share how the technology

works and just get the people who

oversee the safety and security of our

food system very comfortable with our

inputs our processes but it's unclear

when the fda will make a decision we

hope it'll be soon

the second challenge is cost a couple

pieces of nigiri

these days would probably cost 40 or 50

bucks ballpark

that's the production cost which means

if they started selling it right now the

cost for consumers would be even higher

nobody's ever created and scaled a

company like this before and

we're trying as hard as we can to move

that along

but but it is really hard

wildtype says as they scale up the costs

will come down but building large

sterile facilities is expensive and some

journalists who have covered the

industry like joe fassler say we

shouldn't expect labs to create

competitively priced products anytime

soon i think the more realistic voices i

talk to in this space understand that it

may be decades

before these products are anything more

than a novelty for the wealthy

it's a challenge that doesn't seem to

have scared investors away

wildtype recently raised a hundred

million dollars with reported

investments from some big names like

leonardo dicaprio and jeff bezos

even though a survey of u.s consumers

showed that only 19 were eager to try

cell cultured foods

this is new zealand farm salmon it's

what we use in the restaurant in san

francisco this is the wild type salmon i

think lab grown meat at the moment

is incredibly divisive there are some

things that really recommend it and

there are some things that you know are

potentially drawbacks and there's also

just a lot that we don't know

arya and justin say they don't expect

lab-grown salmon to become the only

option

our goal is to provide a new source of

fish to take the pressure off our oceans

lab-grown salmon is still a long way

from that goal but i think at the end of

that road lies very nutritious very

accessible foods that are built on 21st

century values

this salmon fillet didn't come from the

sea

it was grown in a lab to look just like

the real thing

there are a lot of questions that people

have number one question is what does it

taste like

salmon is one of the most popular fish

in the u.s

and it usually comes from massive farms

like this

which can cause all kinds of

environmental problems

growing it from cells might one day

offer an alternative

it's going to be a long very hard

journey to get there

foods made this way aren't yet approved

for sale in the u.s or anywhere in the

world except singapore

and even if they were are consumers

likely to see them on a menu anytime

soon

we went to san francisco to try and find

out

for thousands of years salmon were

abundant in what's now north america

but in 1866 european settlers in the

pacific northwest started preserving

salmon by canning it

it was the start of a massive commercial

fishing operation

soon fisheries were catching millions of

pounds of salmon every year

for a while the supply of salmon seemed

limitless but it wasn't

in fact wild salmon populations were

already declining by the late 1800s and

less than a century later some were at

risk of disappearing forever is there a

possibility of seven becoming extinct at

this rate oh there's no question about

it

the idea of farming salmon came about in

the late 60s

by the early 2000s around two-thirds of

the salmon americans were eating was

grown on farms

but that industry comes with its own

problems

farmed salmon are prone to parasite

infestations which can spread to wild

populations and salmon feed is made

partially from other fish

roughly 12 percent of all fish caught

every year are turned into feed for fish

farms and that has a huge impact on

global fish populations especially in

places like peru and senegal

we just need another source of fish and

and that's what we're here to provide

all right this is arya elfinbine and

justin kolbeck they co-founded wild type

back in 2016.

last one

their goal was to figure out how to grow

a piece of salmon from cells

i started to think about a lot of my

background in stem cell biology and

wondered do we need animals to

have meat

one last piece it's yours wild type

isn't yet letting cameras inside the lab

where it grows the salmon because the

process is still in development

instead arya explained how it all works

so the first step for us was to

basically isolate the cells

wild type got the cells from coho and

chinook salmon

the cells go into a steel tank like the

kind you'd see in a brewery with

nutrients like sugars and amino acids

the tanks have the right temperature ph

and oxygen level for the cells to grow

and replicate the same way they would

inside of fish but what comes out

afterward still looks nothing like a

piece of salmon that's where something

they call scaffolds come in so if the

product is going to be a block of salmon

we'll create scaffolds that are those

same dimensions and then the cells will

grow into those dimensions

they also help the cells mimic the

textures of muscle and fat the cells

attach to the scaffolds and grow into a

shape similar to the salmon fillet you

would buy at a store

and that over time becomes the final

product the growing process takes four

to six weeks

compare that to the roughly three years

it takes to raise farmed salmon

if it's still hard to wrap your head

around how this is possible you're not

alone

arya and justin introduced us to adam

tortosa a restaurant owner and chef he

works with wild type to test how

lab-grown salmon looks tastes and feels

in real dishes it's just crazy that

they're growing sam and me to be honest

he says it finally looks and feels

pretty close to the real thing

i think if you like blindfolded me and

like had me cut i couldn't tell the

difference

this one i would dip in the soy sauce

but it wasn't always this way they

walked into the restaurant and brought

prototype one it was

kind of wet salmon jerky maybe

now he says even the taste is close it

has the same mouthfeel same fattiness

of course we had to try it for ourselves

the flavor was mild but it really did

have a texture that was close to salmon

i would be happy to serve it to guests

right now

adam's restaurant is the type of place

where wild type hopes to see its salmon

one day

when you go to the sushi bar you're sort

of in an exploratory mindset

the idea was if we're going to introduce

a new way to make this product why not

introduce it in a place where people are

already kind of seeking out a new

experience

the company decided to focus on raw

salmon for its initial product launch

when we decided this was the way we

wanted to go we had a lot of people on

the team thinking like couldn't we start

with something a little easier because

it was very audacious

somehow when i make cut rolls

they look

not as good as this i can never get it

quite right like you can taste oceanic

notes not the sort of like funky fish

flavor

these fancy dishes are

hard to eat from right

this is just one starting point for the

wide variety of different flavors that

this product is capable of

but there are still two big problems

the first is that it isn't even legal to

sell cell cultured foods in the u.s

that's because the fda is still figuring

out how to regulate foods that are made

like this and that process just takes

time right to share how the technology

works and just get the people who

oversee the safety and security of our

food system very comfortable with our

inputs our processes but it's unclear

when the fda will make a decision we

hope it'll be soon

the second challenge is cost a couple

pieces of nigiri

these days would probably cost 40 or 50

bucks ballpark

that's the production cost which means

if they started selling it right now the

cost for consumers would be even higher

nobody's ever created and scaled a

company like this before and

we're trying as hard as we can to move

that along

but but it is really hard

wildtype says as they scale up the costs

will come down but building large

sterile facilities is expensive and some

journalists who have covered the

industry like joe fassler say we

shouldn't expect labs to create

competitively priced products anytime

soon i think the more realistic voices i

talk to in this space understand that it

may be decades

before these products are anything more

than a novelty for the wealthy

it's a challenge that doesn't seem to

have scared investors away

wildtype recently raised a hundred

million dollars with reported

investments from some big names like

leonardo dicaprio and jeff bezos

even though a survey of u.s consumers

showed that only 19 were eager to try

cell cultured foods

this is new zealand farm salmon it's

what we use in the restaurant in san

francisco this is the wild type salmon i

think lab grown meat at the moment

is incredibly divisive there are some

things that really recommend it and

there are some things that you know are

potentially drawbacks and there's also

just a lot that we don't know

arya and justin say they don't expect

lab-grown salmon to become the only

option

our goal is to provide a new source of

fish to take the pressure off our oceans

lab-grown salmon is still a long way

from that goal but i think at the end of

that road lies very nutritious very

accessible foods that are built on 21st

century values