Hong Kong cooks up lab-grown fish as demand for clean meat rises
- Cutting meat consumption is an important part of fighting climate change and has a positive effect on the environment
- HK-based food tech company Avant Meats has created the world’s first cultivated fish, which takes less time to produce than regular fish
Lab-grown meat can help the world keep up with increasing demand for beef, chicken and seafood while also helping the environment.When chef Eddy Leung was tasked with cooking what was touted as the world’s first lab-grown fish fillets in his kitchen in Hong Kong, he pan-fried some and deep-fried others before finally deciding on breaded fish burgers with tartare sauce.
“Before I cooked the fish it was quite firm, but after I cooked it the texture changed to being like real fish,” Leung said of the culinary experiment that took place in the gritty Wong Chuk Hang neighbourhood late last year.
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The fillets tasted and smelled like normal fish, but with the consistency of crab cakes, he said.
Made by Hong Kong-based food tech start-up Avant Meats, the fish on Leung’s stove represents a key step towards meeting growing global demand for meat and seafood without jeopardising climate goals, said Elaine Siu, managing director of the non-profit Good Food Institute (GFI) Asia-Pacific.
Meat can have a harmful effect on the environment because of deforestation and the carbon monoxide animals produce.
Cell-cultivated chicken
“Cultivated meat gives consumers the animal protein they want without having to deplete the oceans or chop down the rainforest to get it,” she said.
The fish tasting came on the heels of Singapore’s announcement in early December that it had become the first government to approve cell-cultivated chicken, leading to the world’s first commercial sale of lab-grown meat , also known as “clean meat”.
In a report published last year, GFI said economic growth and rising incomes are expected to drive Asia’s appetite for traditional meat and seafood up nearly 80 per cent by 2050.
While lab-grown meat is just beginning to gain ground, a University of Oxford study in 2011 found cultured meat could lower energy use in meat production by up to 45 per cent, greenhouse gases more than 78 per cent, land use 99 per cent and water use up to 96 per cent.
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However, other researchers have said the green benefits of cultured meat are overestimated, not least because it can be energy-intensive to produce.
Cultivating fish in a lab can be done in a fraction of the time it takes to produce fish normally, said Carrie Chan, Avant’s co-founder and chief executive officer.
Most farmed fish take between a year to two years to grow, depending on the species, while wild fish take longer, she said.
For Leung’s tasting, however, Avant cultivated about 10 fillets in around two months.
To make the fillets, the company put cells from a grouper fish into a bioreactor and fed them glucose, minerals, amino acids, vitamins and proteins – much like making beer or yogurt, said Avant co-founder and chief scientific officer Mario Chin. The cells then grow into muscle tissue – without heads, fins or organs. Cell culture technologies can cultivate a variety of animal proteins almost anywhere, said Chin.
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This appeals to companies looking for stable prices and predictable volume to help them overcome volatility in food supplies, as well as those wanting to source closer to consumers, said J. Y. Chow, who leads Mizuho Bank’s efforts to finance agriculture and food projects in the region.
Governments can benefit, too, with the Covid-19 pandemic and trade conflicts showing the need to secure and localise food production.
“Now we can shrink the footprint to a single point where the bioreactor is,” said Chan.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation said in a 2020 report that one third of the world’s fish stocks are overfished.
More people are open to the idea of lab-grown fish as the world's oceans become increasingly overfished.
The idea of eating lab-grown meat has become more palatable, especially in Asia, in recent years.
A 2019 survey published in the academic journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems showed people in China and India were more open to consuming cultivated meat than consumers in America.
“The street food in Hong Kong is a bit scary. You don’t know what the source is,” said Minnie Cheung, a yoga teacher who tasted the lab-grown fish in Leung’s kitchen.
“If I wasn’t told it was cultivated fish, I would think it was gourmet-quality fish made into a burger.”
Still, many people are sceptical about eating lab-grown fish, both because it is not natural, and because they believe it is genetically modified food.
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Not genetically modified
But cultured seafood is not genetically modified, said Chow – a point that highlights the importance of education and clear labelling in getting people to embrace cultivated meat.
“The critical point is not only to educate the consumer on the how – meaning the process and how safe it is – but also the why,” he said.
That includes explaining why alternative proteins are important and “what are the benefits for you, for animal welfare, for the planet”, Chow said.
If you want to try cutting down on your meat consumption, you could give plant-based options a go.
As well as getting the right information to consumers, the success of cultivated meat and seafood will depend on getting the price right, Chow said.
Right now lab-grown fish are not yet available commercially, so they are expensive. But cultured meats have the potential to disrupt the US$1 trillion (HK$7.8 trillion) conventional meat industry, according to a 2019 report from global consultancy A. T. Kearney.
The report predicted that cultured meats will make up 35 per cent of global meat consumption within the next 20 years.