Cultivated seafood platform Umami Bioworks is joining forces with Steakholder Foods in a two-year R&D collaboration to scale 3D-printed cultivated fish products. The move also aims to bring commercial-ready seafood products to market.

The partnership, funded by the Singapore-Israel Industrial R&D (SIIRD) grant, aims to develop and refine 3D-printed fish fillets, targeting both local and international markets.

“Our partnership with Steakholder Foods is well aligned with our strategy to create a sustainable seafood platform with the scalability required for global impact,” says Mihir Pershad, CEO of UMAMI Bioworks.

“Through this collaboration, we are integrating cutting-edge 3D-printing technology into our cultivated seafood production platform to meet the growing demand for ethical, high-quality alternatives without compromising marine biodiversity.”

Transforming the seafood industry

Umami Bioworks and Steakholder Foods’ collaboration aims to leverage cultivated seafood to reduce the environmental footprint of conventional fishing methods and “serve as a model for future partnerships aimed at transforming the seafood industry,” note the companies.

“Partnering with Umami Bioworks allows us to further extend our longstanding expertise in 3D-printing of plant-based seafood to the production of cultivated products. By leveraging our collective strengths, we aim to quickly develop commercial products that meet industry needs while aligning with regulatory and sustainability goals,” says Arik Kaufman, CEO of Steakholder Foods.

The company has opened up its 3D-printing facility for “interactive” demonstrations, which Kaufman recently discussed with Food Ingredients First, to explain its use in customer engagement through a real-time showcase of its 3D printers.

Targeting food resilience

As part of this collaboration, the companies have created a portfolio of prototype designs that demonstrate the versatility of 3D printing and cell cultivation in producing fish products that match the attributes of a range of species.

They will also partner with Singapore’s National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC), a national platform hosted by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, to translate recent R&D efforts into seafood products ready for commercialization in Singapore and beyond.

Dr Ho Chaw Sing, CEO of NAMIC says: “This collaboration comes at a pivotal moment as Singapore’s aims to achieve food resilience as part of Singapore’s 30 by 30 goal.”

“With the aquaculture sector contributing significantly to this goal, we hope to bolster the cellular agriculture industry as an alternative to the agri-food industry by leveraging on Steakholder Foods’ proprietary 3D printing technology and Umami Bioworks’ cultivated bioproduct expertise to accelerate the development of alternative seafood products, with comparable taste and texture to natural seafood.”

Meanwhile, the companies also note that the partnership “sets the stage” for proactively navigating emerging food safety standards and regulatory frameworks, ensuring that these products are ready for swift commercial deployment.