PARIS, July 29 — What might a fish-free tuna steak or scallops, produced using cellulose, actually taste like?

People in Chicago should soon have the opportunity to find out from August onwards, by making reservations at restaurants that choose to cook these new ingredients derived from a fermentation process.

To make food without killing animals, scientists aren’t just growing bovine stem cells and feeding them growth hormones to make meat analogues.

Another approach is to use fermentation.

In 2022, the Good Food Institute, a lobby group for companies manufacturing plant-based alternatives, reported that manufacturers had invested US$842 million in researching this field.

In practice, it relies on an age-old process involving the chemical breakdown of a substance by bacteria, as in beer and wine making.

The result is a chain of cells capable of forming a consumable texture. The recipe is based on biomass, into which fungi or algae are added to trigger fermentation.

And as strange as it sounds, fish and seafood alternatives can be made in this way, more specifically, tuna and scallop analogues.

In Chicago, Aqua Cultured Foods cultivates cellulose fibre, a major component of wood, to recreate whole fillets of seafood.

The producer waits for the material to take on the desired thickness before pasteurising it, then adding flavours and even a suitable colour. And that’s it!

Soon, this product could be coming to the plates of (potentially Michelin-starred) restaurants in the United States.

According to exclusive information reported by the specialist website GreenQueen, and confirmed by the American start-up via LinkedIn, the food tech company has obtained authorisation to market its fish-free products to restaurateurs from August.

Chicago area residents should be the first to be able to sample the taste of these fish-free scallops and tuna steaks.

A 500m-square factory in Chicago is capable of producing more than two tonnes of these fish-free fermented seafood products.

This announcement comes a year after the approval of laboratory-grown chicken meat.

The US became the second country, after Singapore, to give the green light to lab-grown meat.

The approval specifically concerned Upside Foods and Good Meat.

Both start-ups boasted partnerships with Michelin-starred chefs Dominique Crenn and José Andrés, respectively. — ETX Studio