Not wild, not farmed… but what should we call our seafood made from fish cells?

By Lou Cooperhouse

President & CEO

BlueNalu team members holding four menu items that demonstrate BlueNalu’s whole-muscle, cell-based yellowtail prepared three ways

Let’s talk about a challenging task! Imagine this. You have created a new, transformative way to produce seafood — directly from the cells of fish. You have the potential to produce tuna steaks, mahi mahi fillets, red snapper and a wide variety of other seafood products that are as delicious and nutritious as their wild-caught or farm-raised counterparts….but without the mercury, microplastics, or other pollutants that might be associated with conventional seafood.

Now, before you can bring them to market, you need to demonstrate to the US Food and Drug Administration that your seafood is as safe as wild-caught or farm-raised seafood. And there is one more thing you need to do. The FDA requires you to determine the “common or usual name” to put on the label of all the packaged seafood you market.

That’s a tough assignment. How do you come up with a common or usual name for something that has never existed before? And why does FDA make you do that?

Let’s answer the second question first. For decades, the law FDA administers has required food companies to display a “common or usual name” on their products so consumers know what they are eating. This descriptive name needs to be as simple and direct as possible, refer to the characterizing properties or ingredients of the product, and needs to not be confusingly similar to the name of any other foods that are within the same family of products. For example, if you go to the grocery store, you’ll see various brands of breakfast products on the shelves — all with the common or usual name “cereal” on their packages. Interestingly, the word “cereal” is derived from Ceres, the name of the Roman goddess of harvest and agriculture. Artificial sweeteners use a more direct explanation for their common or usual name — whether you like the one in the blue, yellow or pink packet, all contain the term “zero calorie sweetener” on the label so there is no confusion with sugar.

While few people may know about the FDA requirement for a common or usual name, its presence on food packages has long helped inform consumers.

So there’s a good reason to have a common or usual name. But now, how do you figure out what that common or usual name should be? That’s the task faced by those of us involved in developing meat, poultry, or seafood that is made directly from the cells associated with a particular species. At BlueNalu, we refer to our seafood as “cell-based” or produced through “cellular aquaculture.” Many terms have been utilized around the world by non-profit organizations, academic researchers, government agencies and our peers in the industry.

That’s when we decided the best way to determine the most appropriate name was through robust and rigorous, peer-reviewed consumer research conducted independently by a leading academician. That led us to Dr. Bill Hallman of Rutgers University, an expert in science communication and consumer perceptions of new food technologies. Dr. Hallman has chaired FDA’s Risk Communications Advisory Committee, and in 2014 chaired FDA’s meeting on seafood advice for pregnant women. He was also the Director of the Rutgers Food Policy Institute, so is someone whose work I knew well from my days at Rutgers, as I formerly served as Director of the Rutgers Food Innovation Center.

We asked Dr. Hallman to conduct what is the first — and, to our knowledge, only — research conducted with the specific purpose of determining the appropriate common or usual name for seafood produced directly from fish cells. This was unrestricted research funded by BlueNalu.

The study involved more than 3,000 consumers, using an approach similar to that used by FDA when it conducts consumer tests related to a variety of nutrition/labeling issues. Dr. Hallman has now completed the first phase of his research, which was peer-reviewed and has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Food Science. This journal is a publication of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), and was selected by Dr. Hallman because it is focused on advances in the science of food and food innovation across the globe, is widely read by those in industry, academia, and government, and is highly respected worldwide.

On July 14, Dr. Hallman will share his groundbreaking research during a special session of the prestigious annual IFT conference. I will provide a brief background during this session, and Dr. Hallman will share his methodology, conclusions, and the next steps in his process, with time for Q&A as well.

I won’t tell you his research findings before next week, but I will say that after testing a variety of names that met five regulatory and consumer perception criteria he had established, Dr. Hallman found that one name tested best. As part of his overall work on this issue, Dr. Hallman will conduct a second, confirmatory study that will be completed this fall. At that point, we should be able to make a final decision based on sound research about which common or usual name to adopt.

For more information about BlueNalu, visit www.BlueNalu.com