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| Image: Pink Sherbet Photography |
The latest Silicon Valley frankenfood endeavour might be the most ambitious yet: lab-grown shrimp, Kaleigh Rogers writes for Motherboard.
That’s right, a biotech start-up called New Wave Foods is currently trying to create a plant protein-based, lab-grown, faux shrimp to bring to the market.
The US eats more shrimp than any other type of seafood, with the average American consuming about 4 pounds of the little crustaceans each year, according to the National Fisheries Institute. But as with anything delicious, there’s a catch. New evidence continues to reveal the already pretty well-known dark side of commercial shrimp fishing and farming, including slave labour and environmental destruction. And while this is true for many kinds of seafood, the shrimp industry is particularly bad.
“If you look at seafood, you have to look at the food miles, how it’s being caught, and there’s a lot of mislabelling,” said Jennifer Kaehms, CEO of New Wave.
“We’re really focusing on sustainable seafood, that’s our core motivation.”
Kaehms recently graduated with a bioengineering degree from the University of California San Diego. She came up with the idea for her lab-grown seafood startup after co-founder Dominique Barnes, an oceanography grad at her alma mater, told Kaehms about the perils of shark finning.
“I thought, ‘we can do something about this,’” Kaehms said. “If we can print ears and noses, why can’t we print shark fins?”
Read the full article HERE.
That’s right, a biotech start-up called New Wave Foods is currently trying to create a plant protein-based, lab-grown, faux shrimp to bring to the market.
The US eats more shrimp than any other type of seafood, with the average American consuming about 4 pounds of the little crustaceans each year, according to the National Fisheries Institute. But as with anything delicious, there’s a catch. New evidence continues to reveal the already pretty well-known dark side of commercial shrimp fishing and farming, including slave labour and environmental destruction. And while this is true for many kinds of seafood, the shrimp industry is particularly bad.
“If you look at seafood, you have to look at the food miles, how it’s being caught, and there’s a lot of mislabelling,” said Jennifer Kaehms, CEO of New Wave.
“We’re really focusing on sustainable seafood, that’s our core motivation.”
Kaehms recently graduated with a bioengineering degree from the University of California San Diego. She came up with the idea for her lab-grown seafood startup after co-founder Dominique Barnes, an oceanography grad at her alma mater, told Kaehms about the perils of shark finning.
“I thought, ‘we can do something about this,’” Kaehms said. “If we can print ears and noses, why can’t we print shark fins?”
Read the full article HERE.
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