Plant-Based 3D Printed Eel Showcased in World First

EAT

Jan 10

By using precision layering to replicate the complex texture of eel, the innovative product hopes to solve the seafood industry’s unsustainable demand for wild eel.

The 3D-printed eel. Credit: Steakholder Foods

A company specializing in slaughter-free meat has unveiled what it calls the “world’s first” 3D-printed eel.

The plant-based eel product highlights the capabilities of 3D printing technology and its use in the food industry, with precision layering able to replicate the complex texture of eel.

Steakholder Foods, a pioneer in 3D meat and fish printing technology, hopes that the product can help solve some of the problems that the seafood industry faces, including a global appetite for eel that’s leading to the overexploitation of wild eel stocks and threatening some species with the risk of extinction.

Through its 3D printing technology, Steakholder Foods estimates that partners will be able to mass-produce 3D-printed eel at a competitive price range, which could also tackle the cost challenges linked to the current global prices of eel.

For now, the initial product is printed from plant materials, but the company is expected to include cultivated eel cells in the future as it develops the process. Typically, this process would take cells from a fish or animal, and then cultivate - grow - these cells into muscle and fat. This is then made into a ‘bio ink’ which can be loaded into a 3D printer and be able to print cultivated seafood or meat.

Cultivated meat like this is considered one of the leading solutions to traditional animal agriculture and mass fishing, as it is able to produce animal products, such as meat, eggs, dairy, and fish, from cell culture rather than whole animals. This eliminates the need to farm, raise, and slaughter animals, and therefore also bypasses much of the environmental impact involved in traditional production.

Global Appetite for Eels

The global eel market, valued at USD 4.3 billion in 2022 with a growth rate of 2.19 percent each year, is said to particularly rely on wild eels. Though eel farms exist around the world, they also face difficulties including the complex life cycle of eels and regulatory challenges.

Eel is popular across Asia, particularly in Japan, as well as being seen as a traditional delicacy in European countries including the Netherlands, Denmark, and Spain. This demand has helped contribute to a “dramatic decline” in wild populations. Every year in Europe for example, around 5,500 tonnes of eel are produced in aquaculture farms and a further 1,000 tonnes caught in the wild.

Eel being sold at a food market in Europe.

Wild eels already face the warming effects of climate change, as well as a loss of habitat due to manmade constructions blocking or altering natural waterways. But human consumption has exacerbated the problem and resulted in species including the American, Japanese, and European eel all now being listed as endangered.

Steakholder Foods says its company mission is to develop slaughter-free solutions for meat and seafood through using cutting-edge technology like 3D printing and cellular agriculture. Such methods have the potential to lead a “shift” towards more efficient and sustainable practices in the industry, says the company’s CEO, Arik Kaufman.

Kaufman says the technology is designed to generate products on a potential industrial scale of hundreds of tons each month, and at lower costs compared to procuring wild eel. That means demand for eel products could be met without having to catch them from the wild or mass breed them on aquaculture farms.

In 2023 and beyond, Species Unite will continue to champion the solutions including cultivated meat that can help transition the world away from animal products. Join our community by becoming a member today and check out our Future of Food podcast episodes to learn more about cellular agriculture.

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