Want to try lab-grown salmon? The US just approved it.

National Observer

5 days ago

This story was originally published by Grist and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration
For the first time ever, a lab-grown seafood company has met the United States Food and Drug Administration's requirements for demonstrating the safety of a new cell-cultured product. Wildtype's cultivated salmon is now for sale in Portland, Oregon.
This marks the first time that lab-grown seafood (also known as 'cultivated seafood' or 'cell-cultured seafood') is available for sale anywhere in the world, according to the Good Food Institute, a think tank that advocates for alternative proteins — substitutes for conventional meat made without relying on industrial animal agriculture. It's a major milestone for the emerging cultivated protein industry, which aims to deliver real meat and seafood at scale without replicating the environmental harms of large-scale livestock operations.
It's also a sign that the Food and Drug Administration under the second Trump administration is allowing the regulatory process around lab-grown meat to continue without political interference, despite widespread Republican skepticism of the technology.
Wildtype, which manufactures sushi-grade salmon by cultivating fish cells under laboratory conditions, is the fourth cultivated protein company to receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, to sell its product in the US. The company first reached out to the FDA to discuss the safety of its cultivated salmon during the first Trump administration in 2019, said co-founder and CEO Justin Kolbeck, adding that Wildtype underwent eight rounds of questioning from the agency over the next six years. Kolbeck described the experience as 'a science-driven, data-driven process' and said the team of regulators working with Wildtype stayed largely the same across the three presidential terms.
'Did it feel like a long time in the lifespan of an early-stage startup? Yes,' said Kolbeck. 'But it is completely appropriate, in my opinion. And the reason is that this is a new way to make food. And I think consumers have a right to feel like our food authorities turned over every stone that they can think of.'
In a letter to the company, the FDA stated that it had 'no questions' about Wildtype's conclusion that its cell-cultivated salmon is 'as safe as comparable foods produced by other methods.' However, the agency did add that if Wildtype's manufacturing processes change, it should contact the FDA again for further consultation. The FDA did not respond to Grist's request for comment.
The company is now partnering with Kann, a Haitian restaurant in Portland helmed by the James Beard Award-winning chef Gregory Gourdet. The restaurant began serving Wildtype's salmon weekly on Thursdays this month; in July, the fish will be on the menu full-time.
Kolbeck said that Kann sold out of all its cultivated salmon portions on the first night of service. 'I don't think people saw this as some crazy, wild new thing,' he said. Instead, it was 'another option on the menu, which is ultimately what we're working for. We want to provide consumers with another option for seafood.'
Consumers have an increasing number of choices for alternative proteins at grocery stores and restaurants — from plant-based burgers and chicken nuggets to faux meat made from fermented fungi. Like other alternative protein companies, cultivated protein brands often position their means of production as more sustainable than animal agriculture, the leading source of methane emissions in the US. But cultivated meat differs from other alternative proteins in that it's not vegan; it is meat, just without the mass animal slaughter.
Even though federal regulators have approved only a handful of these products for sale, there has been growing political backlash to cultivated meat.
Last month, three states with Republican-led legislatures enacted bills banning or temporarily banning the sale of such products: Nebraska, Montana, and Indiana. They join three other states with similar bans: Mississippi, where a law prohibiting cultivated meat sales unanimously passed in both the state House and Senate earlier this year; Alabama; and Florida.
The governors of these states have framed these laws as necessary to protect consumers from 'fake meat' (as the Nebraska governor's office puts it) and ranchers from unfair competition in the marketplace. This posture casts doubt not just on the safety of cultivated foods, but also their legitimacy as meat. The Montana bill defines cultivated meat as 'the concept of meat … rather than from a whole slaughtered animal.'
However, recent outcry from ranchers suggests these state officials do not speak for all agricultural producers and consumers; in Nebraska, for example, ranchers have welcomed competition from cultivated protein companies.
Madeline Cohen, who heads the regulatory team at the Good Food Institute, argued these states are sacrificing a chance to create jobs and tax revenue. 'There are a small number of states that have chosen to put political wins over consumer choice and over our general free market system,' said Cohen. 'And they will now kind of be sitting on the sidelines, and they will miss out on economic opportunities.'
But Kolbeck and other proponents argue that biotechnology is needed to meet the rising demand for meat and seafood without depleting the world's natural resources. Both overfishing — which happens when wild fish are harvested at a rate faster than they can reproduce — and warming temperatures pose risks to global food security. Research has shown that climate change has already impacted fish and shellfish populations around the world. Fish farms are an increasingly common alternative to wild fisheries, but these energy-intensive operations can pollute waterways.
Kolbeck framed cultivated salmon as a way to reduce the food system's impact on aquatic ecosystems, protecting them for 'future generations so that people can continue to fish sustainably.'
'How do we take a little bit of pressure off of wild fish stocks and keep these places beautiful?' he said, referring to areas like Bristol Bay in Alaska, where the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery is located.
Suzi Gerber, head of the Association for Meat, Poultry, and Seafood Innovation, or AMPS, a cultivated protein trade group, expressed optimism about the industry's future. She noted that Trump recently released an executive order calling to boost US seafood production.
'The timing is perfect,' said Gerber. 'Wildtype and other seafood producing members of AMPS are very happy to answer this call and to ensure a bright future for American seafood alongside our agricultural colleagues in aquaculture, wild, and farmed fisheries.'
Eric Schulze, an independent consultant for cultivated meat companies and a former federal regulator, said that the FDA's thumbs-up to Wildtype should put Americans' mind at ease about cultivated meat.
'The US produces some of the safest food in the world — conventional and cultivated — and this clearance only elevates food safety and enhances consumer choice,' said Schulze. 'Everyone wins.'