Salmon science and fish friends

Abstract

Salmon, fresh from the cultivator If you want to sit down to a nice plate of sushi, first someone has to catch the fish—or do they? Cofounders of the San Francisco–based start-up Wildtype think there’s another way to put a serving of seafood on your plate—by growing it from cells. The process starts with cells from Pacific salmon, grown in cultivators that look like beer-brewing tanks. And to help the growing cells achieve the right structure, so that they look and feel like salmon meat, Wildtype has developed plant-based scaffolding around which the cells organize and mature over a period of a few weeks. Plenty of factors affect the flavor and texture of the product, including nutrients for the cell growth and the underlying structure of the scaffold. Adjusting the variables to create the ideal product involved some trial and error, according to Wildtype cofounder Aryé Elfenbein. It’s daunting to