German startup Bluu has expanded its salmon cell culture technology to skincare and health innovations, adding to its existing cultivated seafood line.
Hamburg-based Bluu has taken a “salmon leap of opportunities” with the expansion of its cell-cultivated fish platform.
The company, known for its cultured seafood brand, is diversifying its business into the health and beauty markets to accelerate the scaling of cultivated marine cell production in Europe amid its efforts to navigate the regulatory red tape around novel foods in the region.
“We can now outperform nature in creating something perfectly natural. At a cellular level, our cultivated fish products are no different from anything derived from wild-caught or farmed salmon – but, unlike those, they are perfectly traceable and sustainable, without artificial flavours or antibiotics, and without any contamination by microplastics,” said Bluu co-founder and CEO Sebastian Rakers.
“This level of purity combined with reliable sourcing has proven to be very interesting to our partners in beauty and health.”
Bluu takes inspiration from K-Beauty with cultivated marine ingredients
At the heart of its expansion is the startup’s Bluu Zone tech platform, which enables the controlled cultivation of salmonid cells to create bioidentical marine ingredients.
Bluu now operates across three high-growth sectors, each of which is attached to its own brand. Under Bluu Seafood, it has already been working on seafood ingredients derived from salmon and trout. However, it will produce pharmaceutical-grade bioactives from the Bluu Skincare line, and an all-in-one marine bioproduct with multiple benefits as part of the Bluu Health brand.
The company notes that salmonid-based active ingredients have shown exceptional biocompatibility and higher-order benefits (like anti-ageing, rejuvenation and skin vitality). Still, adoption by the beauty industry has so far been limited, thanks to quality concerns stemming from traditional sourcing.
“In today’s beauty care, high performance is everything. Hence, the shift from botanicals to biotechnology, as global brands prioritise potent, science-led actives with visible results. Biotech-derived materials now consistently outperform plant extracts, especially in anti-ageing and skin regeneration,” said Richard Giles, CEO of strategy firm Defined by Insight Consulting.
“Bluu’s ethical fish-cell cultivation creates the first scalable, zero-animal-harm source of salmonid bioactives – long valued in K-Beauty for their exceptional skin-regeneration benefit,” he added.
“By removing the ethical and sourcing barriers that once limited their global use, Bluu is preparing to bring these actives to leading brands with the integrity and quality required for successful adoption.”
Cultivated seafood companies changing course
Bluu noted that work on feasibility and formulation is already underway with partners in the beauty industry, helping them assess performance and scalability and build a foundation for high-purity, traceable, and sustainable marine actives.
It isn’t the only cultivated seafood maker to venture beyond food. Singapore’s Umami Bioworks unveiled a pathogen-detecting tool for the seafood industry last year, and announced a move into marine bioactives for skincare three months ago, starting with regenerative compound PDRN.
In Hong Kong, Avant produces cultivated seafood under its Avie brand, though it diversified into skincare in 2021 on the back of its Zellulin BioPlatform. The line’s first ingredient is a regenerative peptide complex, ZelluGen, marketed under its recently unveiled Biotecq brand.
These shifts come as alternative seafood makes up just 1% of the seafood market, as consumers remain largely unconvinced of their taste, texture or health benefits. It has led some vegan fish companies to diversify into non-mimicking proteins, and others – like cultivated seafood maker Upstream Foods – to cease operations.
That said, it has been a milestone year for cultivated seafood. In the US, Wildtype received the green light to sell its salmon, which is now available on restaurant menus in several states. Another US company, BlueNalu, filed for FDA approval for its bluefin tuna too, and said it’s also eyeing the European market.
Bluu, which has raised over $25M in funding and is developing hybrid fish products with spice manufacturer Van Hees, said that despite the challenges, it’s “only a matter of time” until its cultivated seafood products are approved for sale in the US and the EU.
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