Can This Cultivated Seafood Startup Protect Eels from Extinction?

EAT

Sep 20

Forsea Foods is producing real freshwater eel meat without slaughtering a single animal thanks to its patented organoid technology.

Food tech startup Forsea Foods is developing cell-based eel meat using its patented organoid technology. This has the potential to meet the “tremendous” demand for real eel meat without harming a single animal or contributing to ocean destruction.

The startup launched last year with funding from the Israeli Innovation Authority (IIA) and the Strauss-Group and support from The Kitchen FoodTech Hub.

"The demand for seafood is showing no signs of slowing down," said Amir Zaidman, VP Business Development of The Kitchen Hub. "In fact, global demand is projected to almost double by 2050. But we are rapidly approaching the point where there will simply not be enough fish in the sea to sustain the global community.

“Forsea's innovative new cultivation platform has the potential to bring positive disruption to this paradigm by providing a clean, nutritious, delicious, and commercially viable alternative to wild-caught seafood while leaving the delicate ocean ecosystem completely untouched."

Why Eels?

While Forsea can cultivate practically any type of seafood, the company says it is currently focusing its efforts on cultivating the meat of freshwater eels to help alleviate overfishing while targeting the supply gaps in the eel meat market.

According to Roee Nir, a biotechnologist and CEO and co-founder of Forsea, eels are the ocean’s “most mysterious creatures, undergoing an unusual metamorphosis.” When eels are ready to breed, they swim 6,500 km into the deep ocean to either of two very specific meeting points: the Sargasso Sea, near the Bermuda Triangle, or off Guam.

Once they breed, they die. What returns with the help of the ocean's currents are baby eels weighing around two grams. These can be fished and raised in controlled pools where, over the course of a year and a half, they turn into 250g adults.

Eel meat is particularly sought after in East Asia where it is considered a delicacy, but overfishing has pushed the species closer to extinction over the last decade, with eels now classified as ‘endangered’. In Japan, the eel population has declined by 90 to 95 percent, in turn driving market prices up to $70 per kilogram.

As eels cannot breed in captivity, raising them for food is complex. Forsea offers a sustainable and ethical solution.

"The market demand for eels is enormous," adds Nir. "In 2000, the Japanese consumed 160,000 metric tons. But due to overfishing and rising prices, consumption has dwindled to just 30,000 metric tons,” said Nir. “There is a huge gap between the supply and the demand for eels which traditional aquafarming cannot accommodate.

“Compounding this problem, Europe has barred the export of any type of eel product. The market opportunity for cell-cultured eels is tremendous."

Cell-culturing fish using organoid technology

Forsea’s organoid technology has previously been used in developmental biology, medicine and research fields. Organoids are stem cell-derived, three-dimensional tissue structures. When used in cell-cultured seafood products, they require only a minimal amount of growth factors. The process of forming fish tissue involves creating an ideal environment for fish cells to form their natural composition of native fat and muscle. They grow as a three-dimensional tissue structure - the same as they would in a living fish.

The result is sustainably produced filets of cultured seafood that embody the same taste and textural traits as their ocean-caught counterparts. Unlike those counterparts, however, the resulting product is free from pollutants such as mercury, industrial chemicals, and microplastics.

Forsea claims that they will also yield the same nutritional profile as traditionally raised seafood. "This is a function of how you nourish the cells," explains Nir.

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