New Shore Foods- Out of the Blue

Ocean biomass has reached its lowest point in history due to overfishing. Global warming contributes to a decreasing ocean biomass and ultimately the whole marine ecosystem is endangered. Due to a growing human population all around the world, demand for fish is increasing. To solve this problem we intend to grow fish muscles in controlled environments using tissue engineering methods. This technology can be vertically scalable and will require less space and resource exploitation compared to other marine food systems, such as aquaculture. We aim to provide costumers with high-quality, nutritious foods while contributing to the preservation of marine ecosystems, decreasing the need for fish imports and creating a plurality of new jobs. By meticulously controlling the production system from start-to-end, we guarantee a product free of pollutants and contaminants. In addition, we intend to reach price parity with conventional fish and possibly lower prices as we scale-out. 

In a world with growing population, which is estimated to reach 9.7 billion people by 2050 according to UN report, food availability and security becomes more and more an issue. One important sector is the fish industry. In 2016, around 170 billion tons of fish were captured worldwide from traditional fisheries and produced through aquaculture. The global aquaculture market was valued in $134 billion in 2018 and is estimated to reach a value of roughly $250 billion by 2026. The resulting overfishing is responsible for the extinction of many fish species and endangering marine ecosystems. In addition, the quality of edible fish is decreasing due to pollution of the oceans with plastic, heavy metals and contaminants, which are often accumulated in fish. Most aquaculture fish are heavily supplemented with antibiotics which can potentiate antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and are often exposed to pollutants and other contaminants. 

Our solutions is to grow fish using stem cell technology, without the necessity of catching fish in large scale.

To produce a fish with this technology, we use stem cells isolated through an animal-friendly biopsy from the muscle or fat tissue from a live fish. We will provide the right nutrients for these cells to growth in fermenter-like settings (Bioreactors) so that these cells multiply and differentiate into muscle precursor cells. These can then be placed in an emulsion which can be used in a 3D Bioprinter to evenly place the cells into a 3D structure so that they can fuse and form muscle fibers, which will resemble a conventional fish fillet. Once the production is established, the goal is to scale-up, automatize steps and supply more costumers with a good product for a fair price.

We address all fish consumers since everyone will be affected by a decreasing wild fish stock and the consequent economical and environmental challenges. To ensure that humans will be able to eat fish in the future, new solutions as our idea are indispensable. Previously, by conducting surveys with high cuisine chefs, we could understand what a costumer expects from fish: namely healthy food, a good taste, and texture. In our process of developing a product it is clear, that we will have a costly and exclusive product in the beginning. Later in the process development, the aim is to scale up so that eventually everybody can benefit from cell-based fish globally. In comparison to the existing fisheries and aquaculture our product will not be subjected to seasonal restriction. Additionally, our solution drastically reduces the organic waste and production area. As sustainability and animal welfare increasingly concern people, our product will be an appealing alternative to consumers.

Our project tries to answer to the main questions of this challenge- providing novel techniques to produce and consume low-carbon, resilient and nutritious food. 

By replacing traditional fisheries with growing fish in cell culture, we offer a solution with potential large reductions in carbon emissions and ocean pollution, as well as restoring overfished stocks and thereby protecting endangered species. At the same time, we ensure human population can continue to indulge in fish and seafood products without geographical and seasonal restrictions.

Our product offers a non-traditional production system. Animal foods can be won without reliance on animal slaughter. The innovative technology of 3D bioprinting, animal tissue culture refers to be a cutting-edge, intersectional technology. As we do not use GMO, growth hormones and less antibiotics than in fish aquaculture or product is something new. Furthermore, the technique allows extra terrestrial production, as e.g. in spaceships. Currently there are some smaller companies as Finless Foods, BlueNalu and Wild type, that are doning research in the same field. No of them has released a product and non of them is a solution for the european market, leaving immense opportunity for fledgling companies to pioneer work on addtional cell-based seafood products from other species. Beside the cell cultured fish, there are currently existing fish meat alternatives, like insect based, vegentarian, novel vegetarain, vegan. Our fish will be a natural fish meat as you can get from fisheries or from aquaculture.

The main technology we will use is cell and tissue engineering. Additionally we will use 3D bioprinting. To scale up our product, bioreactors will play an important role.

Stem cell and tissue culture for growing animal cells is already used.

( "Cultured meat from stem cells: Challenges and prospects", Mark J. Post, Department of Physiology, Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands)

The decisive point will be to transfer this to fish stem cells.

We are convinced that our solution to grow fish in cell culture will help the oceans and restore fish stocks, as the need of traditional fisheries will eventually decrease. After scale-up, everyone who consumes fish will be immersed in this technology.

Yet, there is no prototype developed as we are still in development phase. We expect that within the next three years we will release a prototype of our product to have the first few people trying our cell made fish. In five years we want to reach high end restaurants so that a manageable number of people are provides withour product.

Our next milestones for the next year is to establish a feasible cell line, optimize the cell culture and grow muscle fibers. In 2023 we will present a prototype and process on a low scale production, which we scale up till 2033, so that in this year we can launch our fish in supermarkets making it accessible for everyone

Financial barriers are those which will most likely hinder our progress in the next five years.

By possibly expanding our R&D to protein from resilient plant sources to produce nutritious plant-based seafood alternatives, which will most likely require a fraction of the time to achieve a low-cost marketable product appealing to consumers whilst still allowing globally scalability.

We are four master students in the field of biology and biotechnology, who work for this solution. We are about to accquire specialists to get more professionalized work in the field of cell culture and soonly perform the first laboratory experiments.

We are a highly motivated international team, that came together in Lisbon. With the background of biochemistry, Biotechnology, Biology, work expercience in the food production sector as well as marine biotechnology, we provide wide range of relavant expertise. Being international portuguese, swedish and german, we can reach a lot of different people in a wide network.

The value delivered to our costumers is that we offer a nutritious, tasty, contaminant free fish fillet without ethical issues or constraints. Problems from costumers that are solved is the low quality of fish from traditional origin, decrease of wild fish population and high carbondioxide emissions.
In a first place or relationship to the costumers will be trusting, professional and contempt based. Key partners are fishing companies, restaurants, researchers/PI, food quality laboratoriums. Additionally we will contract with partners, like deliveres for lab equiment, maintanance and the quality controll and food safety.

Our solution addressed not only a margin of the population. In fact everyone is affected from overfishing, in terms of food and environment. As the natural wild life is decreasing, our solution can help to stop this decreasing.

We would use the Future Planet capital prize to perform and improve the research, so that in the end we can offer a feasible product.