By Ariel Grossman, NoCamels -
The enigmatic, once-in-a-lifetime reproductive cycle of the freshwater eel, and the inability to breed it in captivity, has led the fish to become an endangered species, leaving the fishing industry failing to keep up with the ever-growing worldwide demand.
But an Israeli startup has developed unique technology to produce cultured eel meat just as it would grow in nature, without having to capture the fish and further threaten its existence.
The patent-pending technology of Forsea Foods lets eel stem cells grow spontaneously into organoids – a miniature collection of tissues that have the same natural composition as “real” eel meat.
The company uses specific growth mediums (liquids used to support the growth of the stem cells), as well as certain other proprietary measures to help the cells proliferate in bioreactor tanks.
Forsea CEO and co-founder Roee Nir says this unique system is what sets its platform apart from other meat cultivators already working in the market.
“What we have is a completely different technology,” he tells NoCamels.
“We perceive our technology as being much more natural because we essentially try to intervene as little as possible, and let the stem cells do what they normally would.”
Nir explains that cultured meat is normally produced through the strategic use of growth mediums that direct the stem cells to divide into specific kinds of tissues, such as fat or muscle.
The different kinds of cells are then placed on a scaffold – a structure typically made from polymeric biomaterials that provides support for the cells as they develop. This not only mimics the arrangement of the cells in natural meat, but also allows them to “communicate” and grow together into meaty tissue.
Forsea, on the other hand, ensures that the stem cells grow into different types of cells without needing to duplicate each kind individually.
As a result, the startup can do away with the scaffolding stage – normally an essential aspect of cell meat cultivation – and thereby simplify the entire production process.
Nir estimates that with the Forsea technology operating at full capacity, it will take just two weeks at most to grow cultivated eel meat on a commercial scale – a far faster pace than the complex life cycle of the freshwater eel.
Once they reach maturity (between 7 to 25 years), the American and European eels – two of the three most consumed eel species worldwide – swim distances of up to 6,000 kilometers (approx. 3,700 miles) to breed for a single time deep in the Sargasso Sea, a part of the Atlantic Ocean.
The third species, the Japanese eel, makes a similarly lengthy journey to spawn west of the Mariana Islands, some 2,500 km (approx. 1,500 miles) from the coast of Japan.
“No one knows how [the eel] decides to do this or when, because it can happen at any time once it is an adult,” explains Nir.
“No one knows how to breed it in captivity because of this long, complicated and complex journey.”
Nir says the rising global demand for eel meat and this inability to breed it in captivity have resulted in a dramatic, 90-percent decline in the freshwater eel population in the last 30 years.
The overfishing of freshwater eels also damages the ecosystems from which they originate.
Freshwater eels maintain biodiversity by preying on smaller fish, which ensures that no single marine species takes over the ecosystem.
They are also an important source of food for birds such as the grey heron and the great cormorant.
All of these factors led to Forsea to develop cultivated eel meat as its first product.
According to market researchers, the global eel market was valued at $4.2 billion in 2021, and is expected to reach $4.78 billion by 2027.
The Rehovot-based startup was first incubated in 2021 at the Kitchen Hub, a food tech project by Israeli food giant Strauss and various venture capitalists.
Its technology was initially created at the lab of Prof. Iftach Nachman at Tel Aviv University, which specializes in cell fate decisions – how and when stem cells decide what “type” they will become.
Since then it has reeled in collaborations with several Asian fish and seafood companies, despite not being commercially available yet. The startup also plans to grow cultured meat of other valuable yet vulnerable seafood species.
Forsea believes its first product will be market ready by 2025. The startup is currently working on increasing the scale of cultivated eel meat that its bioreactors can produce – to meet the demands of a growing global population.
“The forecast for 2050 is that the world population will be around 10 billion [and] there is a huge concern as to how the world will be able to feed this population – more precisely with animal protein,” says Nir.
“The alternative protein industry was established to solve this need – specifically cultivated meat – to bring another source of protein to feed the world.”
