Consider the Eel | The Generalist

🌈 Abstract

The article explores the efforts of Forsea Foods, an Israeli startup, to cultivate eel meat in a lab as a sustainable and scalable alternative to traditional eel farming and fishing. It delves into the challenges and innovations involved in this process, as well as the potential impact on the eel industry and conservation efforts.

🙋 Q&A

[01] The Hunt for Male Eels

1. What was Sigmund Freud's involvement with eels as a young researcher? As a 20-year-old research student in Trieste, Italy, the young Sigmund Freud was part of a "veritable hunt for male eels", spending his days dissecting the bodies of eels to try to uncover their reproductive mysteries.

2. What were some of the key mysteries surrounding eels that Freud and other researchers were trying to solve? Eels only develop sexual organs later in life as they prepare to return to the ocean to breed, making their sex difficult to determine. Freud and his research team were desperately searching for eel gonads as part of their quest to uncover the eel's reproductive mysteries.

3. What is known about the eel's enigmatic life cycle and migration patterns? Eels begin their lives in saltwater, migrate to freshwater, and eventually return to the ocean to spawn. This migration necessitates a full transformation, with eels taking on different forms as thin, crystalline "glass eels", opaque adolescents, and grim stone-colored adults. Their breeding grounds are located in the Sargasso Sea, where they dissolve their stomachs and devour their own bodies for survival on the final leg of their journey.

[02] The Cultivated Meat Landscape

1. What were the key challenges faced by the early pioneers of lab-grown meat, such as the $330,000 burger produced by Professor Mark Post? The early lab-grown meat prototypes, while revolutionary, lacked the flavor, fat, and juiciness associated with traditional meat. Reaching price parity with conventional meat has also proven to be a major obstacle for the cultivated meat industry.

2. How does Forsea's approach to cultivating eel meat differ from the strategies of other cultivated meat startups? Forsea is focusing on eel, a premium and endangered seafood product, rather than targeting mass-market products like beef or chicken. This allows them to aim for profitability at a smaller scale, similar to Tesla's approach, rather than trying to immediately achieve price parity with cheap conventional meat.

3. What are the key advantages of Forsea's "organoid" technology compared to the "directed differentiation" approach used by other cultivated meat companies? Forsea's organoid technology allows the stem cells to largely guide their own development, reducing the need for expensive growth factors and enabling the co-cultivation of different cell types in a single bioreactor. This can lead to cost savings and greater efficiency compared to the more controlled "directed differentiation" approach.

[03] Scaling Up and Regulatory Hurdles

1. What are some of the key challenges Forsea faces in scaling up its eel meat production? Forsea will need to build a first-of-its-kind production facility, which is estimated to cost $100-200 million. Securing the necessary capital for this scale-up will be a significant challenge, especially given the recent cooling of the cultivated meat investment landscape.

2. What are the regulatory hurdles Forsea must overcome to bring its cultivated eel product to market in Japan? Forsea is seeking regulatory approval in Japan, where eel is deeply embedded in the culture and cuisine. While Japan's Prime Minister has expressed support for the cultivated meat industry, navigating the bureaucratic approval process will still be a key challenge for the company.

3. How have consumer perceptions of cultivated meat and seafood products been shaping the industry's progress? While some surveys suggest openness to trying cultivated meat and seafood, there are also signs of emerging consumer backlash, driven by entrenched agricultural interests and culture-war politics. Overcoming consumer skepticism about the "unnaturalness" of cultivated products will be crucial for Forsea's success.

[04] The Eel's Endangered Status and Forsea's Conservation Potential

1. What is the current state of global eel populations, and what factors are contributing to their decline? Eel populations have plummeted globally, with the European eel population declining by 98% since 1980. Overfishing, environmental changes, and the illegal trafficking of juvenile "glass eels" have all contributed to the eel's endangered status.

2. How might Forsea's cultivated eel product help address the ecological crisis facing wild eel populations? If Forsea is successful in creating a commercially viable cultivated eel product, it could help reduce the pressure on wild eel populations and contribute to their conservation. Nir, Forsea's CEO, hopes the company can eventually cultivate facsimiles of other endangered fish species as well.

3. What are some of the unique challenges in farming eels compared to other fish species, and how does this make Forsea's approach potentially more viable? Eels are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity, with their complex life cycle and mysterious spawning habits confounding scientists for centuries. This makes cultivating eel meat a more promising approach than attempting to farm eels, which has proven elusive for the aquaculture industry.