DEVELOPMENT OF HYBRID PLANT-BASED FISH NUGGET CONTAINING CULTIVATED FISH MUSCLE TISSUE

Our goal for this project is to rationally develop a hybrid fish nugget consisting of cultivated fish muscle tissue and plant-based ingredients. In the short-term, this project will enable us to develop a product which does not currently exist, giving us market traction and allowing us to benefit from early cycles of learning in a nascent industry. In the long-term, the knowledge generated regarding the specific molecular composition of our cultivated muscle tissue, how it relates to the organoleptic properties of our fish nugget, and how different production processes can improve this will form a proprietary competitive moat that will enable us to develop more advanced products, including hybrid products with a striated muscle structure and fully cell-based products. It will be accomplished via the following specific objectives:Objective 1: Produce and characterize cultivated fish muscle tissue.The outcome of this Objective is a thorough, quantitative dataset describing the molecular composition of our cultivated fish muscle tissue and traditional fish muscle.Objective 2: Develop and characterize a prototype hybrid fish nugget.The outcome of this Objective is both an edible prototype hybrid fish nugget and a quantitative understanding of how cultivated fish muscle affects the prototype compared to traditional fish muscle.Objective 3: Develop rational process improvements for our cultivated fish muscle tissue.The outcome of this Objective is an improved, commercially competitive hybrid fish nugget with less than 10% deviation from those produced using traditional fish muscle in instrumented and sensory panel testing.