Enter the era of cell-cultured seafood
By Lou Cooperhouse
President & CEO
Close up of BlueNalu’s whole-muscle, cell-cultured yellowtail, beer-battered and deep-fried for fish tacos
In July 2018, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) held its first public meeting on the topic of “Food Produced Using Animal Cell Culture Technology.” The FDA stated that the primary focus of the meeting was food safety. While safety was indeed discussed, it was the labeling of these products that soon took center stage. It was clear from the public comments during the FDA meeting and other referenced sources that there was no consensus on how to label these new products.
Politico declared a “War of words over lab-grown meat.” Slate magazine warned “a labeling war is brewing.” The Atlantic wrote “The FDA held a public meeting to talk about it but no one could agree on what to call it.” Some supporters called it “clean meat.” Some opponents questioned whether it could even be called meat. The media often took to calling it “lab-grown,” especially in headlines. And even among those using this new technology to produce meat, poultry, and seafood, there was no consensus — “cell-based,” “cultured,” “cultivated,” were just a few of the terms being used.
Despite the calls for one name or another, I couldn’t help but notice the absence of any credible consumer research to support these names. Having spent my entire career in the food industry, I knew that both FDA and the USDA require foods to have a “common or usual name” that enables consumers to know what they are eating — and not eating — just from looking at the label. (Think of terms like “cereal,” “butter,” and “ketchup.”) The truth is, at the time there was no reliable scientific data about labeling terms that would ensure consumer transparency.
How do you label a product that does not currently exist, and that most consumers are unaware can exist? As the CEO of BlueNalu, a new company focused on developing seafood directly from fish cells across a variety of species, we wanted a common name that was clear about what we were producing, differentiated from conventional seafood products, and that appealed to consumers. And so we set out to find that name.
Prior to starting BlueNalu, I was the Executive Director and a founder of the Rutgers Food Innovation Center. There, I was colleagues with Dr. William Hallman, Chair of the Rutgers Department of Human Ecology, former Director of the Food Policy Institute, a widely renowned risk communications expert and a former chair of FDA’s Risk Communications Advisory Committee. I knew that if anyone could conduct the kind of independent, peer-reviewed, consumer research needed to determine a name for these products, it was Bill.
I asked if he could determine a methodology and a process to answer the question, “if not wild or farmed, what do we call our seafood made from the cells of fish?” BlueNalu would underwrite the costs for this independent, unrestricted research and whatever the results, we wanted them published in a peer-reviewed journal for all to see. Bill found this to be a very important and much needed topic of research, and he agreed to conduct this study.
Importantly, in developing the methodology for nomenclature determination, Dr. Hallman established five criteria for assessing each term’s ability to: enable consumers to distinguish cell‐based seafood from wild and farmed fish, signal potential allergenicity, be seen by consumers as an appropriate term to identify the product, not disparage either cell‐cultured or conventional products, and not evoke thoughts, images, or emotions that are inconsistent with the idea that the products are safe, healthy, and nutritious.
Two studies later, the first published in the Journal of Food Science, the second under review, Dr. Hallman’s groundbreaking research found that terms containing the word “cell” performed best in differentiating our seafood from wild caught or farmed seafood, and terms without the word “cell,” like “cultivated” or “cultured,” resulted in heightened levels of consumer confusion.
Our timing was good. While Dr. Hallman was completing the second study, the FDA issued a Request for Information for the Labeling of Foods Comprised of or Containing Cell Cultured Seafood Cells. This provided the perfect opportunity to share the research and see if either of the two terms that tested best — “cell-based” or “cell-cultured” — could achieve consensus.
With this knowledge, in Fall 2020 BlueNalu initiated a dialogue with the executive leadership team of the National Fisheries Institute (NFI), the leading industry voice for conventional seafood interests, and AMPS Innovation, the leading industry voice for cell-cultured meat, poultry and seafood producers in the U.S., of which BlueNalu is a founding member. We learned that NFI was supportive of either “cell-based” or “cell-cultured,” and that “cell-cultured” was much preferred by a super-majority of AMPS Innovation members.
The result? AMPS Innovation and NFI aligned on key criteria for labeling. The two organizations submitted a joint letter to the Food and Drug Administration on March 8, 2021 and urged the FDA to adopt and memorialize the sole use of the term “cell-cultured” to support uniform labeling within the seafood category, and ensure consistency across all product categories.
We are in good company, too. Stakeholder groups like the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), among others, also pointed to Dr. Hallman’s peer-reviewed consumer research in their letters to the FDA as being critical data for determining the appropriate labeling framework for seafood made from fish cells.
BlueNalu is proud to have helped bring about broad alignment on terminology and we thank our collaborators among academia, industry, and non-governmental organizations for being flexible and open to this objective discussion.
At last, disparaging and misleading terms such as “clean” and “lab-grown” can be laid to rest. Enter the era of cell-cultured seafood.
Follow us on social media @BlueNalu and @EatBlueNow
Resources:
Read the FDA’s request for information here
Read the AMPS & NFI joint letter to the FDA here
Read the BlueNalu letter to the FDA here
Read the EDF letter to the FDA here
Read the CSPI letter to the FDA here
For more information about BlueNalu, visit www.BlueNalu.com