Wildtype's cell-cultivated salmon is making its market debut this month at Kann restaurant in Portland, Oregon.
Photo: Wildtype Foods.
Californian lab-grown seafood company Wildtype has received safety approval from the USA's Food and Drug Administration for its cell-cultivated coho salmon, and is now debuting its product in selected restaurants, the company has announced.
Wildtype, which was founded in 2016, produces sushi-grade cell-cultivated Pacific salmon products at its pilot facility in San Francisco. In 2022, the startup successfully closed a Series B funding round, raising $100 million, and said at the time it was engaged in a pre-market consultation process with the FDA with the aim of bringing its products to market.
The approval by the FDA clears the way for Wildtype's cell-cultivated seafood to be sold via restaurants, and potentially later be retailed directly to consumers.
In an official memorandum on Wildtype's product issued on 28 May, the FDA indicated it had compared the cell-cultivated coho salmon with conventional salmon, and found it to be "comparable" in its safety for consumption.
"We evaluated information about the cell lines, the production process (including cell bank establishment), substances used in the production process, and properties of the harvested cell material, including information available in both the disclosable safety narrative as well as supporting, corroborative information in the supplemental, confidential material," the memorandum states.
The FDA memorandum goes on to say that "we have no questions at this time about Wildtype’s conclusion that foods comprising or containing cultured coho salmon cell material [...] are as safe as comparable foods produced by other methods".
Wildtype's cell-cultivated salmon has now been debuted for the foodservice market at the Portland, Oregon restaurant Kann, and the company has announced it will also be supplying its products to four additional restaurants over the next four months.