If you could have zero-waste salmon, as nutritious and delicious as wild-caught, would you? Foodie internet has been abuzz with the news of lab-grown salmon, released by food engineering firm Wildtype.
The firm advertises it’s sushi-grade salmon as being just as good as any fish you’d catch in the sea without any of the food waste produced. This means that there is not a single bit of the fish that is wasted when prepping it in a usual kitchen – no fins, scales or heads to toss away into the rubbish bin.
It also makes proud mention of the fact that its cultivation laboratory is in the middle of a city, San Francisco in the United States, and uses sustainable practises to ensure its fish production has a minimal environmental impact.
“Loaded with omega-3 and omega-6 fats, Wildtype salmon has all the things we love most about wild fish, without the things we don’t, like mercury, parasites, antibiotics or other contaminants,” Wildtype says.
“Cell-cultivated seafood can protect wild species and our oceans, and help reverse trends of global food insecurity. It’s a new seafood option that provides the same nutritional benefits as the most pristine wild-caught fish, without the mercury, microplastics, antibiotics and other contaminants common in wild and farmed fish.”
How is lab-grown salmon made?
“Demand for seafood and other animal protein has never been greater, while wild sources continue to dwindle. At the same time, our global population is on track to reach nearly 10 billion by the middle of this century. With so much new demand on our food supply, we need to create new tools to sustainably meet the environmental and food security challenges of our 21st century. This is the promise of cellular agriculture,” the company says.
“By growing seafood directly from cells, we now have the ability to cultivate genuine salmon and other seafood without relying on wild or farmed fish. What’s more, we have the opportunity to keep what we all love about seafood on our plates – the delicious protein and nutritious fats – without the things we’d rather leave out: microplastics, mercury, and other common contaminants.”
ALSO READ: Action needed before overfishing depletes our waters
Cell-based antelope in Africa
Meanwhile, lab-grown food is also on the rise in South Africa. A local cellular agriculture food-tech company, Mogale Meat, is developing solutions to future-proof Southern Africa’s inadequate nutrition and food security issues, including creating cell-based cultured meat from free-roaming antelope and cattle.
Food For Mzansi earlier reported that cultured meat in Southern Africa provides a giant leap toward a more sustainable meat production process and how cultured meat technology can help unlock some of the biggest nutrition issues facing the region’s food industry and, potentially, solve the food security dilemma.
“In the short time that we have been in operation, we have been able to produce and cryopreserve more than 500 cell cultures from five antelope species and cattle,” says Mogale Meat chief executive Dr Paul Bartel Bartels.
ALSO READ: Cell-based antelope could boost food security in Africa
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