Latest news with #cultivatedsalmon
Fast Company
28-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
The first-ever cultivated-meat fish just got FDA approval. Its CEO talks about how Wildtype got there.
In early June, Wildtype, a San Francisco-based lab-grown meat company, received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to sell its cultivated sushi-grade salmon saku after a yearslong waiting game. The company is only the fourth to receive FDA approval for cultivated meat in the U.S., joining Upside Foods and Good Meat, which both sell laboratory-grown chicken, and Mission Barns, which focuses on pork fat. Wildtype, meanwhile, is the only company of its ilk focusing on replicating seafood. Wildtype's salmon is not a plant-based meat alternative; it's actual salmon, derived from Pacific salmon cells that have been fed with nutrients like protein, fat, and salt. The end product is a cut of meat that the company says looks like salmon, tastes like salmon and, nutritionally, is like a fraternal twin to the real thing. This new form of lab-grown meat is debuting just as the budding cultivated meat industry has become a political flashpoint among some conservative dissenters. How a former brewery became a lab for growing fish Wildtype was founded in 2017 by Justin Kolbeck, a former diplomat, and Aryé Elfenbein, a cardiologist. Kolbeck says the two shared an interest in entrepreneurship, as well as a desire to pursue new solutions to global food insecurity. At the time, Elfenbein was working on a project that involved the regeneration of damaged human heart tissue—a process that led him to wonder how a similar process might be used to create meat products without actually harming any animals. From there, the idea for Wildtype was born.
The Verge
09-06-2025
- Business
- The Verge
Lab-grown salmon gets FDA approval
The FDA has issued its first ever approval on a safety consultation for lab-grown fish. That makes Wildtype only the fourth company to get approval from the regulator to sell cell-cultivated animal products, and its cultivated salmon is now available to order from one Portland restaurant. Wildtype announced last week that the FDA had sent a letter declaring it had 'no questions' about whether the cultivated salmon is 'as safe as comparable foods,' the customary final step in the FDA's approval process for lab-grown animal products. The FDA has sole responsibility for regulating most lab-grown seafood, whereas the task is shared with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for cultivated meat. The FDA's pre-market safety consultation is voluntary, but is 'helpful for marketability,' IP lawyer Dr. Emily Nytko-Lutz, who specializes in biotechnology patents, explained to The Verge. 'There are other pathways involving self-affirmation of safety as well as a longer food additive review process, but the FDA's authorisation with a 'No Questions' letter is a middle ground.' Wildtype salmon is now on the menu at Haitian restaurant Kann in Portland, Oregon, and the company has opened a waitlist for the next five restaurants to stock the fish. It joins Upside Foods and Good Meat, two companies with permission to sell cultivated chicken in the US, while Mission Barns has been cleared by the FDA but is awaiting USDA approval for its cultivated pork fat. At a state level, the situation is more complicated, with eight states issuing bans on lab-grown meat as the technology becomes a conservative talking point.
