Singapore-based cultivated seafood innovator Umami Bioworks and Japanese seafood company Maruha Nichiro are advancing their collaboration on cell culture with the joint development of cultivated bluefin tuna.

As the cell-cultivated seafood space gathers pace, the two companies are launching the project to meet the growing global demand for marine products, ensure a stable protein supply, and reduce the impact on marine resources.

In 2010, Maruha Nichiro became the first private company to achieve 100% egg-to-harvest, farm-raised bluefin tuna. The growing global popularity of Japanese food is creating new opportunities to expand bluefin tuna sales overseas. Maruha Nichiro will now supply its bluefin tuna cells for Umami Bioworks to use its platform to further advance the cell culture technology.

Atsuko Motoshima, brand communication and public relations group manager at Maruha Nichiro Corporation, tells Food Ingredients First about ensuring a stable protein supply by securing sustainable new protein resources.

“The key driving factors to these developments include providing a stable supply of high-quality protein in tuna, which is in high demand worldwide while reducing the burden on marine resources.”

“A joint development agreement was initiated in January 2013, with cells collected in Japan and culture experiments underway in Singapore. Umami Bioworks is ahead in the technology for scale-up of eel cell culture.”

“By utilizing machine learning, we expect to be able to shorten the time and cost required to establish culture conditions and scale-up technology in tuna as well, which is why we decided to launch the  cell-culture bluefin tuna project.” 

Motoshima explains how the company is currently conducting culture experiments in Singapore using cells from fully cultured bluefin tuna collected in Japan.

“We will first establish culture conditions on a lab scale and then move on to consider scale-up.

By utilizing Umami Bioworks’ machine learning technology, we will accelerate our efforts toward commercialization and test marketing in Singapore.” 

Singaporean cellular innovation

Singapore has an advanced regulatory landscape and has emerged as the leading region for cell cultivation innovation. 

In 2020, Singapore became the first country to approve meat grown in a lab, following a rigorous consultation and review process by the Singapore Food Agency. Cultured chicken meat from Eat Just was green-lighted for sale in Singapore as an ingredient in chicken bites. 

“Singapore’s small land area and low food self-sufficiency rate have created a sense of urgency for sustainable food production and a strong desire to establish new technologies, and the government is actively supporting start-up technologies,” Motoshima continues.

“Japan, which relies on imports for much of its food, should learn from Singapore’s efforts. Umami Bioworks is a very valuable partner for Maruha Nichiro.” 

Series of collaborations

In November 2024, Umami Bioworks joined forces with Steakholder Foods in a two-year R&D collaboration to scale 3D-printed cultivated fish products. 

This came a month after Umami Bioworks launched Arbiter, a seafood safety and quality assurance solution that addresses the growing challenges of pathogen detection and quality assessment across the seafood value chain.

In October 2024, the company also partnered with biotech firm KCell Biosciences and bioprocess solutions provider WSG to propel sustainable cultivated seafood production in South Korea.