Fresh from the lab, the fish fingers of the future

CAPTAIN Birds Eye may soon spend fewer days at sea as the company behind its famous fish fingers is researching laboratory-grown seafood.

Europe’s largest frozen food group has teamed up with US company BlueNalu to develop food grown from cells in a lab.

Nomad Foods, which also owns the Findus and Green Cuisine brands, said it aimed to meet rising demand for fish and ensure it remained sustainable in the long term.

BlueNalu creates seafood using living cells from the muscle, fat and connective tissue of a fish. These are given nutrients to make them multiply, and are then made into portions of seafood. The two companies will collaborate on market research and determine what is needed to gain regulator approval.

Stefan Descheemaeker, of Nomad Foods, said: ‘The importance of sustainability has never been more apparent, and the role of technology in delivering these needs is accelerating.’

Nomad, which is the world’s largest purchaser of sustainable wild caught fish, said this agreement was the first of its kind in Europe.