Latest news with #BlueNalu
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
BlueNalu expands partnership with NomadFoods to commercialise cell-based products in UK, Europe
US-based lab-grown seafood maker BlueNalu has expanded its strategic partnership with NomadFoods to bring its products to market in the UK and Europe. The two companies have been working together since 2021 to explore opportunities for bringing cell-cultivated seafood to selected markets in those regions. "What began as a strategic exploration into the future of cell-cultivated seafood in Europe has now grown into a deeper partnership aimed at commercializing these products," Lou Cooperhouse, founder, president and CEO of BlueNalu said in a statement. "The expanded agreement reflects the strong alignment between our companies and builds on the success of our early joint efforts in market research, regulatory strategy, and consumer insights." Nomad Foods and BlueNalu are now focusing on market-entry strategies in the UK, starting with "premium foodservice and limited-time offerings that align with consumer demand for high-quality seafood options'. BlueNalu was one of eight businesses accepted into the UK's Food Standard Agency FSA regulatory 'sandbox' program, a research project that aims to achieve new regulatory permissions in the cultivated meat sector of the UK. The program enables selected businesses to work collaboratively with the FSA to navigate the regulatory process for novel foods and ensure the highest food safety and transparency standards. BlueNalu said it is the only US-based company admitted to the UK program to date, and the only one focused primarily on cell-cultivated seafood. Commenting on the expanded partnership, Cooperhouse added: "As part of this next phase, we're working together to develop a go-to-market roadmap in the UK and broader European region - focusing on key areas such as product development, regulatory advancement, and strategic market entry. " "Nomad Foods brings unparalleled regional expertise and market reach, and we're proud to continue this partnership as we advance toward bringing healthy, responsibly produced seafood to consumers across Europe." The news comes as new research sponsored by BlueNalu revealed there was a 'health-driven demand for cell-cultivated seafood'. The sponsored study showed a "strong enthusiasm among UK sushi consumers for cell-cultivated bluefin tuna toro". A survey of 2,000 regular sushi consumers in 2024 found 92% of respondents said they were interested in trying the product, with "top perceived benefits" including "potential absence of parasites, pesticides, microplastics, mercury and antibiotics, followed by high omega-3 content". BlueNalu also supported a recent third-party academic study that concluded that 'cell-cultivated' and 'cell-cultured' were "appropriate" labeling terms, meeting essential regulatory and consumer acceptance criteria.. Set up in 2018 in San Diego, California, BlueNalu develops cell-based seafood products directly from fish cells. "BlueNalu expands partnership with NomadFoods to commercialise cell-based products in UK, Europe" was originally created and published by Just Food, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
Associated Press
30-04-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Agronomics Limited Announces BlueNalu Expands Partnership with Nomad Foods
DOUGLAS, IM / ACCESS Newswire / April 30, 2025 / Agronomics (LSE:ANIC), a leading listed company in the field of clean food, is delighted to announce that its portfolio company, BlueNalu, Inc ('BlueNalu'), a global leader in cell-cultivated seafood, has expanded its strategic partnership with Nomad Foods Limited ('Nomad Foods'), Europe's leading frozen food company, to support the commercialisation of its cell-cultivated seafood products in the UK and across Europe. Nomad Foods and BlueNalu first announced their partnership in 2021. To date, the partnership has explored opportunities to bring cell-cultivated seafood to select markets in the UK and Europe. The new partnership will now see the two companies work together on delivering a market-entry strategy for the sale of BlueNalu's cell-cultivated seafood in the UK, beginning with premium foodservice and limited-time offerings that align with consumer demand for high-quality seafood options. The partnership will also support BlueNalu's ongoing work with the UK Government. In March, the Government announced that BlueNalu had joined the UK Food Standards Agency's ('FSA') pioneering regulatory programme to help speed up the approval process for cultivated-grown foods. The program enables BlueNalu to work collaboratively with the FSA to navigate the regulatory process for novel foods and ensure the highest food safety and transparency standards. BlueNalu is the only company within the program focused primarily on cell-cultivated seafood. New research sponsored by BlueNalu also reveals strong enthusiasm among UK sushi consumers for cell-cultivated bluefin tuna toro, which will be its first commercial product. In a survey of 2,000 frequent sushi eaters conducted in 2024, 92% of respondents expressed interest in trying the product. The top perceived benefits included its potential absence of parasites, pesticides, microplastics, mercury, and antibiotics, followed by high omega-3 content. Additionally, 74% expressed willingness to pay the same or more compared to conventional bluefin tuna, due to its potential benefits. Lou Cooperhouse, Founder, President, and CEO of BlueNalu commented 'Our cell-cultivated bluefin toro offers a new, high-quality seafood experience-nutrient-rich, free from environmental contaminants, and designed to complement a global supply chain that is increasingly fragile and unpredictable. We are proud to work with trusted partners and forward-thinking regulatory agencies to deliver safe, consistent, and desirable seafood to consumers in the coming years. Our acceptance into the UK regulatory sandbox reinforces BlueNalu's position as a global company at the forefront of food system innovation.' Jim Mellon, Executive Chair of Agronomics said: 'Today's news further exemplifies the ongoing momentum in the cultivated food sector across the globe. This research also confirms what we have known for some time, that there is a strong demand from consumers, who want food options which are not only more sustainable, but ones which are healthier and better for themselves and the planet. We are looking forward to BlueNalu making waves in the UK, as its partnership with Nomad Foods will drive forward innovation in the clean food industry.' To date, Agronomics has invested a total of US$ 8.0 million (c.£6.1 million) in BlueNalu which, subject to audit, is currently carried at £13.0 million. This position represents c.8.6% of Agronomics' last stated Net Asset Value as at 31 December 2024. For more information about BlueNalu, please visit About BlueNalu BlueNalu is pioneering the future of seafood by developing premium-quality, cell-cultivated seafood products directly from fish cells. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in San Diego, California, the company combines innovative biotechnology with culinary expertise to deliver seafood products that align with consumer preferences for health, safety, and sustainability. BlueNalu is dedicated to supporting a more resilient global seafood supply chain and reducing pressure on wild fish populations. About Agronomics Agronomics is a leading London-listed company focusing on investment opportunities within the field of clean food. The Company has established a portfolio of over 20 companies in this rapidly advancing sector. It seeks to invest in companies owning technologies with defensible intellectual property that offer new ways of producing food and materials with a focus on products historically derived from animals. These technologies are driving a major disruption in agriculture, offering solutions to improve sustainability, as well as addressing human health, animal welfare and environmental damage. This disruption will decouple supply chains from the environment and animals and improve food security for the world's expanding population. A full list of Agronomics' portfolio companies is available at About Reach announcements This is a Reach announcement. Reach is an investor communication service aimed at assisting listed and unlisted (including AIM quoted) companies to distribute media only / non-regulatory news releases into the public domain. Information required to be notified under the AIM Rules for Companies, Market Abuse Regulation or other regulation would be disseminated as an RNS regulatory announcement and not on Reach. This information is provided by Reach, the non-regulatory press release distribution service of RNS, part of the London Stock Exchange. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact [email protected] or visit SOURCE: Agronomics Limited press release
The Independent
06-02-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Pets are being sold lab-grown meat – but is it safe?
Last year, the UK government made headlines by granting £1.6m to the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to investigate something straight out of science fiction: lab-grown meat. The notion of beef that never chewed its cud or chicken that clucked feels like the fever dream of a Black Mirror writer. Yet here we are, Pets at Home has now launched what it claims are the world's first treats t hat combine plant-based ingredients with lab-grown chicken, eliminating the need for raising and slaughtering animals. And experts say, it is only a matter of time that humans are sold meat produced in vats, not fields. But, before you start imagining petri-dish poultry and test-tube T-bones in Tesco, let's tackle the big questions: is it safe? Is it healthy? And will it save the planet or is it just another ultra-processed foodstuff? Upside Foods, one of the leaders in cultivated meat, certainly thinks it has a place in a sustainable food future. 'We're so past the petri dish stage,' says Melissa Musiker, the California-based company's head of communications. Rather than a sterile, futuristic lab, think more along the lines of an artisanal brewery, but swap out the hipster hops for massive steel bioreactors. So how does lab-grown meat come to life? It starts with cells from a fertilised chicken egg. Scientists choose the best ones, making sure they grow continuously into high-quality, safe meat. The cells are then fed a nutrient-rich broth of water, sugars, amino acids, vitamins, minerals and salts, all brewed up in those huge bioreactors. Two to three weeks later, they harvest what will eventually resemble a chicken fillet. While the concept sounds futuristic, it's grounded in real science that has existed for years. In fact, the origin of the idea has medical roots. Dr Uma Valeti, Upside's founder, dreamt up the concept while he was using stem cells to help heart attack patients regrow damaged tissue. If we can regrow human organs, he thought, why not regrow meat? Fast forward more than a decade, and Upside Foods now churns out more than 22,000kg of cultivated chicken annually, with ambitions to increase that eightfold. And it's not alone. Other companies like Eat Just and BlueNalu are also making strides, with lab-grown chicken already available in Singapore and BlueNalu's bluefin tuna on the horizon. The technology varies between companies – some take cells from a live animal, for example – but the UK remains behind, thanks to regulatory hurdles. The recent FSA funding is a critical step in laying out the groundwork to bring cultivated meat to British plates. The real question, though, is whether this high-tech meat offers meaningful improvements on the conventional stuff. Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London and a heavy hitter in the UK's food-health scene, sees it as an essential stepping stone to get people to rethink their diets. 'In a way, for many people, this might be a transition. We need to get them onto plants,' he says. Spector doesn't deal in absolutes; he's more interested in the grey areas, in incremental gains. Take the backlash against Beyond Meat and Impossible Burgers, plant-based meat products – also produced in a lab – that were criticised for being ultra-processed, 'but they're still healthier than the burgers they were replacing', he says. The point isn't perfection but progress, and that's exactly what lab-grown meat offers – a step away from industrialised meat production. Then there's the issue of whether lab-grown meat can be classed as ultra-processed. 'Lab-based meat itself is quite basic,' Spector says. 'To give it the texture and feel of real meat, you might have to add chemicals that could make it ultra-processed, but that doesn't have to be the case.' Protein and fat aren't inherently processed, he points out. It's what happens to them next – how they're manipulated – that could push lab-grown meat into the ultra-processed category. Still, while the potential benefits of lab-grown meat are significant, not everyone is convinced that technology is the answer. Patrick Holden, a dairy farmer and founder of the Sustainable Food Trust, is particularly sceptical. 'I think it's sad that so much energy and attention is being focused on reinventing nature when nature would always do a much better job than tech at feeding us,' he says. Holden advocates for regenerative farming practices that work with nature rather than trying to outsmart it in a lab. On his farm, he focuses on improving soil health, sequestering carbon and enhancing biodiversity by rotating crops and grazing animals on natural pastures. This, he believes, is the real solution. However, these methods remain on the fringes of British farming. Holden says the real issue is industrial farming's grip on the UK. 'Everybody's saying, 'Oh, we have to give up meat, we have to go on a plant-based diet.' Well, no. We need to give up eating cheap, industrial white meat like chicken.' As he puts it, 'It's not the cow, but the how.' Beyond environmental concerns, Holden also wonders whether meat from a bioreactor can ever capture the richness and complexity of something produced naturally. 'How are they going to mimic that in a lab?' he asks. The cheese he makes on his farm reflects the diversity of the pastures his cows grace on. That kind of terroir, he argues, can't be grown in a vat. Musiker, for her part, laughs off these criticisms. She argues that it's precisely because Upside's chicken isn't grown on a living, flapping bird that it's so tender. With the tension of movement, the meat is softer. She recently hosted a dinner where Upside chicken was on the menu, and it was so close to the real thing that her neighbours complained about the smell. 'Which is just a really big compliment for us,' she laughs. She's even convinced friends who gave up meat for ethical reasons. 'One had tears in her eyes. She hadn't eaten a piece of meat in 20 years. She thought it was uncanny.' For Upside, the real target isn't small-scale, sustainable farms. It's the vast industrial meat complex responsible for a sizeable chunk of global greenhouse gas emissions. 'Somehow we are seen as an existential threat when we're producing a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of the overall animal agricultural industry,' she says. When in reality, 'if you're into slow food and small farms or regenerative agriculture, your end goal is very similar to our end goal.' That is, to reduce demand for cheap, mass-produced meat driving deforestation, water depletion and pollution. She describes cultivated meat as an 'environmental release valve', an option for people 'who are trying to actualise their climate angst', much like buying an electric car or offsetting their carbon emissions when they fly. I think it's sad that so much energy and attention is being focused on reinventing nature, when nature would always do a much better job than tech at feeding us Patrick Holden, Sustainable Food Trust But is it really better for the planet? Traditional meat production is undeniably a heavy hitter when it comes to global emissions. Raising animals requires land, water and feed, while generating significant methane. Research suggests lab-grown meat could cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 96 per cent compared to conventional meat production, while using far less land and water. However, it's not entirely free of challenges. It requires a significant amount of energy, particularly in the form of electricity to power those enormous bioreactors. For now, we're talking about kilograms. Until the industry scales up, we won't know the true environmental impact. Cost is another hurdle. At present, lab-grown meat is expensive to produce, pricing it out of reach for all but the most eco-conscious elite. As the technology advances – thanks to funding grants like in the UK – and more companies enter the market, prices may drop, making it more accessible to the average consumer. But for now, it remains a niche product. For all the hurdles, Spector remains optimistic. 'I'm all for these foods,' he says. 'Generally, it's moving people in the right direction and the foods are getting either more sustainable or more healthy.' In 10 years, he predicts, 'we will all be eating this stuff'. And in the meantime, it's a good thing we're having the conversation. 'How much meat you eat is the most important decision you can make for the planet,' he says. But for all the optimism from Upside Foods, lab-grown meat faces significant hurdles before it can become mainstream. Regulation is the first obstacle; misinformation is another. Some people question whether it qualifies as 'healthy' in the broader sense. Last year, a now-debunked article on Bloomberg raised concerns about the cells used to produce lab-grown meat, speculating their rapid growth might make them precancerous. While the claim has been thoroughly discredited, it highlights the public's hesitation about this new technology. That said, lab-grown meat comes with certain advantages: it's free from antibiotics, hormones and the environmental risks of conventional farming, like avian flu. Musiker is confident that, over time, these reservations will fade. She compares the current scepticism to the early days of other groundbreaking technologies. 'It's like that famous 1994 segment on the Today show where Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel asked, 'What is internet, anyway? Do you write to it, like mail?' It took years, but now it's ubiquitous.' Will the same be true for lab-grown meat? That remains to be seen. For now, it's a work in progress with regulatory hurdles to clear and production costs to reduce. But with the UK government now on board, the possibility of cultivated meat becoming a fixture in British supermarkets is no longer far-fetched. Ultimately, lab-grown meat presents both a promise and a dilemma. It offers a high-tech solution to some of the most pressing issues facing the food system – from climate change to animal welfare – but it also raises fundamental questions about the role of technology in our food supply. Is it a stepping stone to a more sustainable future, or a distraction from the more natural solutions that already exist? The answer may depend on how willing we are to embrace a future where meat no longer comes from an animal at all.
The Independent
06-02-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Pets are being sold lab-grown meat - but is it safe?
Last year, the UK government made headlines by granting £1.6m to the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to investigate something straight out of science fiction: lab-grown meat. The notion of beef that never chewed its cud or chicken that clucked feels like the fever dream of a Black Mirror writer. Yet here we are, Pets at Home has now launched what it claims are the world's first treats t hat combine plant-based ingredients with lab-grown chicken, eliminating the need for raising and slaughtering animals. And experts say, it is only a matter of time that humans are sold meat produced in vats, not fields. But, before you start imagining petri-dish poultry and test-tube T-bones in Tesco, let's tackle the big questions: is it safe? Is it healthy? And will it save the planet or is it just another ultra-processed foodstuff? Upside Foods, one of the leaders in cultivated meat, certainly thinks it has a place in a sustainable food future. 'We're so past the petri dish stage,' says Melissa Musiker, the California-based company's head of communications. Rather than a sterile, futuristic lab, think more along the lines of an artisanal brewery, but swap out the hipster hops for massive steel bioreactors. So how does lab-grown meat come to life? It starts with cells from a fertilised chicken egg. Scientists choose the best ones, making sure they grow continuously into high-quality, safe meat. The cells are then fed a nutrient-rich broth of water, sugars, amino acids, vitamins, minerals and salts, all brewed up in those huge bioreactors. Two to three weeks later, they harvest what will eventually resemble a chicken fillet. While the concept sounds futuristic, it's grounded in real science that has existed for years. In fact, the origin of the idea has medical roots. Dr Uma Valeti, Upside's founder, dreamt up the concept while he was using stem cells to help heart attack patients regrow damaged tissue. If we can regrow human organs, he thought, why not regrow meat? Fast forward more than a decade, and Upside Foods now churns out more than 22,000kg of cultivated chicken annually, with ambitions to increase that eightfold. And it's not alone. Other companies like Eat Just and BlueNalu are also making strides, with lab-grown chicken already available in Singapore and BlueNalu's bluefin tuna on the horizon. The technology varies between companies – some take cells from a live animal, for example – but the UK remains behind, thanks to regulatory hurdles. The recent FSA funding is a critical step in laying out the groundwork to bring cultivated meat to British plates. The real question, though, is whether this high-tech meat offers meaningful improvements on the conventional stuff. Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London and a heavy hitter in the UK's food-health scene, sees it as an essential stepping stone to get people to rethink their diets. 'In a way, for many people, this might be a transition. We need to get them onto plants,' he says. Spector doesn't deal in absolutes; he's more interested in the grey areas, in incremental gains. Take the backlash against Beyond Meat and Impossible Burgers, plant-based meat products – also produced in a lab – that were criticised for being ultra-processed, 'but they're still healthier than the burgers they were replacing', he says. The point isn't perfection but progress, and that's exactly what lab-grown meat offers – a step away from industrialised meat production. Then there's the issue of whether lab-grown meat can be classed as ultra-processed. 'Lab-based meat itself is quite basic,' Spector says. 'To give it the texture and feel of real meat, you might have to add chemicals that could make it ultra-processed, but that doesn't have to be the case.' Protein and fat aren't inherently processed, he points out. It's what happens to them next – how they're manipulated – that could push lab-grown meat into the ultra-processed category. Still, while the potential benefits of lab-grown meat are significant, not everyone is convinced that technology is the answer. Patrick Holden, a dairy farmer and founder of the Sustainable Food Trust, is particularly sceptical. 'I think it's sad that so much energy and attention is being focused on reinventing nature when nature would always do a much better job than tech at feeding us,' he says. Holden advocates for regenerative farming practices that work with nature rather than trying to outsmart it in a lab. On his farm, he focuses on improving soil health, sequestering carbon and enhancing biodiversity by rotating crops and grazing animals on natural pastures. This, he believes, is the real solution. However, these methods remain on the fringes of British farming. Holden says the real issue is industrial farming's grip on the UK. 'Everybody's saying, 'Oh, we have to give up meat, we have to go on a plant-based diet.' Well, no. We need to give up eating cheap, industrial white meat like chicken.' As he puts it, 'It's not the cow, but the how.' Beyond environmental concerns, Holden also wonders whether meat from a bioreactor can ever capture the richness and complexity of something produced naturally. 'How are they going to mimic that in a lab?' he asks. The cheese he makes on his farm reflects the diversity of the pastures his cows grace on. That kind of terroir, he argues, can't be grown in a vat. Musiker, for her part, laughs off these criticisms. She argues that it's precisely because Upside's chicken isn't grown on a living, flapping bird that it's so tender. With the tension of movement, the meat is softer. She recently hosted a dinner where Upside chicken was on the menu, and it was so close to the real thing that her neighbours complained about the smell. 'Which is just a really big compliment for us,' she laughs. She's even convinced friends who gave up meat for ethical reasons. 'One had tears in her eyes. She hadn't eaten a piece of meat in 20 years. She thought it was uncanny.' For Upside, the real target isn't small-scale, sustainable farms. It's the vast industrial meat complex responsible for a sizeable chunk of global greenhouse gas emissions. 'Somehow we are seen as an existential threat when we're producing a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of the overall animal agricultural industry,' she says. When in reality, 'if you're into slow food and small farms or regenerative agriculture, your end goal is very similar to our end goal.' That is, to reduce demand for cheap, mass-produced meat driving deforestation, water depletion and pollution. She describes cultivated meat as an 'environmental release valve', an option for people 'who are trying to actualise their climate angst', much like buying an electric car or offsetting their carbon emissions when they fly. I think it's sad that so much energy and attention is being focused on reinventing nature, when nature would always do a much better job than tech at feeding us Patrick Holden, Sustainable Food Trust But is it really better for the planet? Traditional meat production is undeniably a heavy hitter when it comes to global emissions. Raising animals requires land, water and feed, while generating significant methane. Research suggests lab-grown meat could cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 96 per cent compared to conventional meat production, while using far less land and water. However, it's not entirely free of challenges. It requires a significant amount of energy, particularly in the form of electricity to power those enormous bioreactors. For now, we're talking about kilograms. Until the industry scales up, we won't know the true environmental impact. Cost is another hurdle. At present, lab-grown meat is expensive to produce, pricing it out of reach for all but the most eco-conscious elite. As the technology advances – thanks to funding grants like in the UK – and more companies enter the market, prices may drop, making it more accessible to the average consumer. But for now, it remains a niche product. For all the hurdles, Spector remains optimistic. 'I'm all for these foods,' he says. 'Generally, it's moving people in the right direction and the foods are getting either more sustainable or more healthy.' In 10 years, he predicts, 'we will all be eating this stuff'. And in the meantime, it's a good thing we're having the conversation. 'How much meat you eat is the most important decision you can make for the planet,' he says. But for all the optimism from Upside Foods, lab-grown meat faces significant hurdles before it can become mainstream. Regulation is the first obstacle; misinformation is another. Some people question whether it qualifies as 'healthy' in the broader sense. Last year, a now-debunked article on Bloomberg raised concerns about the cells used to produce lab-grown meat, speculating their rapid growth might make them precancerous. While the claim has been thoroughly discredited, it highlights the public's hesitation about this new technology. That said, lab-grown meat comes with certain advantages: it's free from antibiotics, hormones and the environmental risks of conventional farming, like avian flu. Musiker is confident that, over time, these reservations will fade. She compares the current scepticism to the early days of other groundbreaking technologies. 'It's like that famous 1994 segment on the Today show where Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel asked, 'What is internet, anyway? Do you write to it, like mail?' It took years, but now it's ubiquitous.' Will the same be true for lab-grown meat? That remains to be seen. For now, it's a work in progress with regulatory hurdles to clear and production costs to reduce. But with the UK government now on board, the possibility of cultivated meat becoming a fixture in British supermarkets is no longer far-fetched. Ultimately, lab-grown meat presents both a promise and a dilemma. It offers a high-tech solution to some of the most pressing issues facing the food system – from climate change to animal welfare – but it also raises fundamental questions about the role of technology in our food supply. Is it a stepping stone to a more sustainable future, or a distraction from the more natural solutions that already exist? The answer may depend on how willing we are to embrace a future where meat no longer comes from an animal at all.
