Would you eat lab-grown seafood?

The booming cultivated meat industry is taking aim at the growing environmental challenges of traditional agriculture.

Doug Grant is the CEO of Atlantic Fish Co., a start-up developing lab-grown fish in North Carolina in partnership with NC State's Food Innovation Lab.

"This is not a plant-based replica," Grant said. "It's just real meat or seafood, made in a totally different way."

Atlantic Fish Co. is in the early stages of production, but aims to create flaky white fish fillets from animal cells to make seafood more sustainable as climate change continues to threaten ocean ecosystems.

"It's much more ethical and has a much lower carbon footprint, while still providing folks with that real authentic seafood that they know and love," Grant said.

Trevor Ham, who received his doctorate from Duke, is the company's Chief Strategy Officer and has been refining the company's process for growing fish cells at a lab at NC State.

"We know everything that cells have touched, so we can know with a much higher degree of confidence than naturally-caught seafood that it's not contaminated," Ham said. "It doesn't have viruses or bacteria, heavy metals, or antibiotics in it. And if we know what we want the micro and macro nutrients to be, we have a lot of knobs that we can turn to adjust that."

To grow fish in a lab, scientists isolate fish stem cells that can develop into the parts of the fish people eat: muscle, fat, and connective tissue. The cells are fed a solution containing proteins to signal them to divide and generate more cells. Scientists then structure the tissue into the shape and texture of fish meat.

"The demand for seafood is growing and we can't make more ocean, so we need to find a new way to do it," Grant said.

If and when lab grown fish does hit the market, it could fix supply issues with many species and reduce reliance on fishing. One-third of the world's fish stocks are over-fished and that disrupts ocean ecosystems, according to the United Nations. The agency projects fish consumption will grow by 20% over the next decade.

"What we're mainly working on now is getting the cells to grow as quickly as possible," Ham said.

The cultivated meat industry is still new, so companies are racing to bring costs low low enough to break into the $120 billion seafood market.

Atlantic Fish Co. recently received $100,000 from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, part of an effort to spur ag tech innovation in the state.

"It's important to support cultivated food technology because it helps us meet our public health needs, healthy environment, and help economic development by growing jobs and companies in the state," said Jennifer Greenstein, senior director of investments for emerging company development at NC Biotech.

NC Biotechnology Center is a life science economic development organization funded by the state that recently received $1 million to allocate to companies over two years through an ag tech-specific program.

"The biotech scene is thriving here," Greenstein said.

Believer Meats is building the worlds largest cultivated meat production facility in Wilson, North Carolina, to make lab-grown beef and chicken.

Atlantic Fish Co. is planning to have its first tasting events with demo products by this spring.

There will be some ongoing product development and regulatory hurdles, so consumers likely won’t see cultivated seafood on restaurant menus for a couple of years.

"We haven't built the house yet, which is the finished product, but we've made really, really good bricks," Grant said.