Transforming the future of lab-made seafood

AQUA Cultured Foods has brought on board Ginkgo Bioworks to help develop its innovative fermentation technology to ‘transform the future of alt-seafood’.

AQUA creates tuna and scallops with the texture, taste, and appearance of fresh-caught seafood, without using any fish or animal products. Benefits include a lack of saturated fat, contaminants or antibiotics as well as reducing overfishing and helping preserve marine ecosystems.

Stefan Baier, PhD, chief science officer of AQUA Cultured Foods said the deal marked a significant step in revolutionising alternative seafood production. “Our partnership aims to accelerate our technology, bringing our delicious products to market faster,” he said.

“Beyond sequencing, we envision engineering our proprietary consortium for next-gen products, pushing alt-seafood boundaries with unique textures and building the nutrition beyond a good source of fibre.”

Using a patent-pending fermentation process, the seafood is made from microbes and fibres combined with plant-derived flavours. Gingko will use its sequencing and analytics services to tune AQUA’s microbial strains to help scale up production.

Mervyn de Souza, senior director, business development at Ginkgo Bioworks said the collaboration aligned with Gingko’s focus on innovation and sustainability. “AQUA’s groundbreaking fermentation technology is reshaping the future of alt-seafood, and we at Ginkgo are thrilled to contribute to this transformative journey,” he said.

AQUA will be at Ginkgo’s Ferment conference this year on 11 April in Boston, US where a range of products will be available for attendees to sample.