Ever After Foods acquires Fishway to expand cultivated protein manufacturing platform
Ever After Foods (EAF) has acquired Belgian cultivated seafood company Fishway, bringing its aquatic cell lines, animal-component-free media capabilities and scientific team into EAF's industrial protein manufacturing platform following an earlier technology collaboration between the two companies.
• Ever After Foods acquired Fishway following a collaboration that validated the compatibility of Fishway's aquatic biology and media capabilities with EAF's manufacturing technology.
• Fishway's team joined EAF, while its Belgian operations remained a European center of excellence for aquatic biology and media development.
• EAF also secured an additional US$2 million investment and identified cultivated functional protein ingredients for premium pet food as an initial commercial program.
The acquisition marked a further expansion of EAF's strategy to provide integrated production technology to food, ingredient and cultivated protein companies rather than develop a single consumer-facing cultivated meat product.
Financial terms of the Fishway transaction were not disclosed. Fishway's shareholders will continue to support the EAF platform, while the company's existing team will become part of the wider EAF organization.
Belgium will remain a center of excellence for aquatic biology and media development, giving Israel-based EAF an expanded scientific and operational presence in Europe.
"The future of protein will be determined not by who develops the next breakthrough, but by who can bring breakthrough technologies together into scalable industrial production," said Eyal Rosenthal, CEO of Ever After Foods.
"Fishway is an important addition to our broader strategy to build the industrial infrastructure required for resilient, scalable, and secure protein production. We are committed to selectively integrating complementary biology, media and manufacturing technologies while remaining an open manufacturing platform serving companies across the cultivated protein ecosystem."
The deal followed a technology collaboration between EAF and Fishway that tested the compatibility of the two companies' respective platforms. According to EAF, the work demonstrated that Fishway's aquatic biology and animal-component-free media could be combined with EAF's manufacturing system to create a more integrated route from cell development through media optimization and industrial production.
Bringing those capabilities into one organization is intended to reduce technical interfaces between different parts of the production process and shorten development cycles across multiple species and applications.
For Fishway, the acquisition also represented a significant evolution of the partnership-led model it had pursued while developing its cultivated seafood technology.
In a 2025 interview with Protein Production Technology International's sister event, The Future of Protein Production, Fishway CEO Annelies Bogaerts described a deliberately lean strategy focused on the company's core expertise in fish cell biomass while working with specialists elsewhere in the production chain.
The Belgian company had concentrated on cultivated fish biomass for minced and mixed seafood applications rather than attempting to reproduce structured whole fillets. Bogaerts argued that products such as fish sticks, patties, dumplings and spreads offered a simpler route toward commercialization without requiring the complex structures associated with whole-cut seafood.
Fishway had also been developing stable fish cell lines and working on scalable media, capabilities that now sit alongside EAF's bioprocessing and manufacturing technologies.
"The cultivated protein space has faced an assortment of challenges over the last few years, but the promise of quality protein production at scale has not dimmed," said Bogaerts.
"The industry is entering a new phase, moving from isolated technology development to industrial integration and commercialization. After an initial technology collaboration demonstrating the power of our complementary solutions, it was clear that the acquisition would help us drive a new era of safe, sustainable protein manufacturing. We look forward to supporting EAF's industrial platform."
EAF's platform centers on its proprietary PlantriX edible scaffold and Edible Packed-Bed (EPB) production system, which were developed as alternatives to conventional stirred-tank bioreactors.
The system uses a plant-based scaffold to provide a high-surface-area environment for cells to grow in three dimensions, with nutrients circulated without conventional stirring. EAF has previously reported biomass yields of up to 68% and said its system could operate with substantially less working volume than conventional approaches.
The company has made production efficiency central to its B2B strategy, arguing that simply increasing bioreactor capacity does little to solve cultivated protein economics if the underlying process remains inefficient.
That manufacturing strategy has developed over several years. In June 2024, EAF secured a US$10 million strategic investment as it shifted toward becoming a technology provider for other companies in the cultivated protein industry. At the same time, the licensing agreement covering technology originating from biotechnology company Pluri was expanded to include cultivated fish.
In February 2025, EAF subsequently entered a collaboration with food processing technology company Bühler to develop commercial-scale manufacturing systems using EAF's cultivation technology. The companies set out to combine EAF's cell cultivation platform with Bühler's industrial engineering and food-processing expertise.
The Fishway acquisition now brings more of the upstream biological development required by those manufacturing systems inside EAF.
It also broadens the potential markets for the platform beyond cultivated meat and seafood.
One of the first commercial programs using the combined capabilities will focus on cultivated functional protein ingredients for premium pet food. EAF cited industry demand, product value and what it described as favorable regulatory dynamics as reasons for targeting the category.
There is some history to that direction. In PPTI's 2025 interview with Fishway, Bogaerts said the company was already exploring applications beyond human food, including infant nutrition and pet food, while its core development work remained focused on seafood.
EAF said the combined platform would also support food companies, ingredient manufacturers and cultivated protein developers working on cultivated meat, seafood and other next-generation protein applications.
Alongside the acquisition, EAF has secured an additional US$2 million strategic investment to support commercialization and further expansion of the platform. The company did not disclose the identity of the investor or investors in the announcement.
EAF is backed by strategic shareholders across food production, industrial manufacturing and biotechnology. The company said it intended to continue expanding through a combination of internal R&D, partnerships and selective acquisitions or integrations of complementary technologies.
The Fishway transaction gives that strategy a tangible new dimension. Rather than simply connecting separate providers across cell biology, media development and manufacturing, EAF will now house specialist aquatic biology and media capabilities alongside the engineering platform it has spent the past several years developing.
For Fishway, meanwhile, the route to scale will now run through the industrial platform of a company whose cultivated fish ambitions predate the acquisition itself.
The immediate test will be commercial. EAF and Fishway have already demonstrated that their technologies can work together. With the acquisition completed, a new scientific team in the organization and another US$2 million committed to the platform, the focus shifts to turning that technical compatibility into production programs for customers.
If you liked this, check these out...
• Perceived ‘naturalness’ shapes public support for cultivated meat and other climate technologies
• Aleph Farms wins Singapore approval for cultivated beef as second market opens
• BeneMeat opens its doors to Czech meat processors as cultivated meat dialog gains momentum
Join Us At One Of Our Upcoming Events
If you have any questions or would like to get in touch with us, please email info@futureofproteinproduction.com
