Original subtitles

Narrator: This salmon fillet didn't come from the sea.

It was grown in a lab to look just like the real thing.

There are a lot of questions that people have.

No. 1 question is what does it taste like?

Narrator: Salmon is one of the most popular fish in the US.

And it usually comes from massive farms like this,

which can cause all kinds of environmental problems.

Growing it from cells might one day offer an alternative.

It's going to be a long, very hard journey to get there.

Narrator: Foods made this way

aren't yet approved for sale in the US,

or anywhere in the world except Singapore.

And even if they were, are consumers likely

to see them on a menu anytime soon?

We went to San Francisco to try and find out.

For thousands of years, salmon were abundant

in what's now North America.

But in 1866, European settlers in the Pacific Northwest

started preserving salmon by canning it.

It was the start of a massive commercial fishing operation.

Soon, fisheries were catching millions

of pounds of salmon every year.

For a while, the supply of salmon seemed limitless.

But it wasn't.

In fact, wild salmon populations were already declining

by the late 1800s, and less a century later,

some were at risk of disappearing forever.

Reporter: Is there a possibility

of salmon becoming extinct at this rate?

Oh, there's no question about it.

Narrator: The idea of farming salmon came about

in the late '60s.

By the early 2000s, around two-thirds of the salmon Americans

were eating was grown on farms.

But that industry comes with its own problems.

Farmed salmon are prone to parasite infestations,

which can spread to wild populations.

And salmon feed is made partially from other fish.

Roughly 12% of all fish caught every year

are turned into feed for fish farms,

and that has a huge impact on global fish populations,

especially in places like Peru and Senegal.

We just need another source of fish,

and that's what we're here to provide.

Narrator: This is Aryé Elfenbein and Justin Kolbeck.

They cofounded Wildtype back in 2016.

Narrator: Their goal was to figure out

how to grow a piece of salmon from cells.

Aryé: I started to think about a lot of my background

in stem cell biology and wondered,

do we need animals to have meat?

Justin: One last piece. Aryé: It's yours.

Narrator: Wildtype isn't yet letting cameras

inside the lab where it grows the salmon

because the process is still in development.

Instead, Aryé explained how it all works.

So the first step for us

was to basically isolate the cells.

Narrator: Wildtype got the cells

from coho and Chinook salmon.

The cells go into a steel tank, like the kind you'd see

in a brewery, with nutrients like sugars and amino acids.

The tanks have the right temperature, pH,

and oxygen level for the cells to grow

and replicate the same way they would inside a fish.

But what comes out afterward still looks nothing

like a piece of salmon.

That's where something they call scaffolds come in.

So if the product is going to be a block of salmon,

we'll create scaffolds that are those same dimensions,

and then the cells will grow into those dimensions.

Narrator: They also help the cells mimic the textures

of muscle and fat.

The cells attach to the scaffolds and grow

into a shape similar to the salmon fillet you

would buy at a store.

And that, over time, becomes the final product.

Narrator: The growing process takes four to six weeks.

Compare that to the roughly three years it takes

to raise farmed salmon.

If it's still hard to wrap your head

around how this is possible, you're not alone.

Aryé and Justin introduced us to Adam Tortosa,

a restaurant owner and chef.

He works with Wildtype to test how lab-grown salmon looks,

tastes, and feels in real dishes.

Adam: This is crazy that they're growing salmon,

(laughs) to be honest.

Narrator: He says it finally looks

and feels pretty close to the real thing.

Adam: I think if you like, blindfolded me and had me cut,

I couldn't tell the difference.

This one I would dip in the soy sauce.

Narrator: But it wasn't always this way.

They walked into the restaurant and brought prototype one.

It was kind of wet salmon jerky, maybe.

Narrator: Now, he says even the taste is close.

Adam: It has the same mouthfeel, same fattiness.

Narrator: Of course, we had to try it for ourselves.

The flavor was mild,

but it really did have a texture that was close to salmon.

I would be happy to serve it to guests right now.

Narrator: Adam's restaurant is the type of place

where Wildtype hopes to see its salmon one day.

When you go to the sushi bar,

you're in an exploratory mindset.

The idea was if we're going to introduce a new way

to make this product, why not introduce it in a place

where people are already seeking out a new experience?

Narrator: The company decided to focus

on raw salmon for its initial product launch.

Justin: When we decided this was the way we wanted to go,

we had a lot of people on the team thinking like,

"Couldn't we start with something a little easier?"

Because it was very audacious.

Somehow, when I make cut rolls,

they look not as good as this.

Aryé: I can never get it quite right.

Justin: You can taste oceanic notes, not the funky fish flavor.

Justin: These fancy dishes are hard to eat from.

Aryé: This is just one starting point for the wide variety

of different flavors that this product is capable of.

Narrator: But there are still two big problems.

The first is that it isn't even legal

to sell cell-cultured foods in the US.

That's because the FDA is still figuring out

how to regulate foods that are made like this.

And that process just takes time, right?

To share how the technology works

and just get the people who oversee the safety

and security of our food system very comfortable

with our inputs, our processes.

Narrator: But it's unclear when the FDA

will make a decision.

We hope it'll be soon.

Narrator: The second challenge is cost.

Aryé: A couple pieces of nigiri these days

would probably cost 40 or 50 bucks, ballpark.

Narrator: That's the production cost,

which means if they started selling it right now,

the cost for consumers would be even higher.

Justin: Nobody's ever created and scaled a company

like this before, and we're trying as hard as we can

to move that along, but it is really hard.

Narrator: Wildtype says as they scale up,

the costs will come down.

But building large, sterile facilities is expensive,

and some journalists who have covered the industry,

like Joe Fassler, say we shouldn't expect labs

to create competitively priced products anytime soon.

I think the more realistic voices I talk to

in this space understand that it may be decades

before these products are anything more than a novelty

for the wealthy.

Narrator: It's a challenge that doesn't seem

to have scared investors away.

Wildtype recently raised $100 million,

with reported investments from some big names

like Leonard DiCaprio and Jeff Bezos,

even though a survey of US consumers showed

that only 19% were eager to try cell-cultured foods.

Adam: This is New Zealand farmed salmon.

It's what we use in the restaurant in San Francisco.

This is the Wildtype salmon.

Joe: I think lab-grown meat at the moment

is incredibly divisive.

There are some things that really recommend it,

and there are some things that are potentially drawbacks.

And there's also just a lot that we don't know.

Narrator: Aryé and Justin say they

don't expect lab-grown salmon to become the only option.

Aryé: Our goal is to provide a new source of fish,

to take the pressure off our oceans.

Narrator: Lab-grown salmon

is still a long way from that goal.

Justin: But I think at the end of that road lies very nutritious,

very accessible foods that are built on 21st-century values.