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wildtype fish salmon sustainable alternative wildtype fish salmon sustainable alternative

The fish of the future? We sample Wildtype’s cultivated salmon

Episode Two in our Climate Tech series

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If the environmental impact of seafood puts you off, then cultivated fish is an exciting new alternative. But how is this futuristic fish made? And how does it taste? In the second short film of our Climate Tech series, we visit San Francisco’s Wildtype to find out.

wildtype fish salmon sustainable alternative

How do you balance a love of seafood with a love of the sea?

After all, you can’t catch or farm fish without leaving a mark on the marine environment, whether that’s through pollution, overfishing or destruction of habitats by trawl nets.

But what if there were another way to get delicious seafoods like salmon? Without even getting your feet wet?

That’s what San Francisco foodtech startup Wildtype is doing.

The cuts of salmon that Wildtype’s chef serves up at the company’s sushi bar originate from cells taken from real Atlantic salmon. But instead of growing in the bodies of the fish as they swim around the sea, the cells are grown in steel tanks, fed by the same kinds of nutrients that salmon live on in the wild.

Some call it lab-grown salmon, but Wildtype’s co-founder Aryé Elfenbein says their “fishery” has more in common with a brewery than a lab.

The big question is: does this futuristic sushi taste as good as the real thing? In our video, Imagine5’s Justin Cadelago finds out.

About Imagine5

We are storytellers inspiring you to live a planet-friendly life. Through our stories we shift perspectives and help you see that sustainable change is already underway. Sparking imagination that leads to action, creating a shift to sustainable behaviour as the norm. It’s happening.

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