Last year, startup Pairwise began selling the first food in the U.S. made with Crispr technology: a new type of mustard greens with an adjusted flavor. But chances are, most consumers have never been able to try them. The company introduced vegetables to the food service industry (restaurants, cafes, hotels, retirement centers and select catering companies) in only a few cities. They were also sold by a single grocery store in New York City.
Now, biotech giant Bayer has licensed Pairwise greens and plans to distribute them in grocery stores nationwide. “We hope to have the product in the kitchen and on the table in autumn this year,” says Anne Williams, director of protected crops at Bayer’s vegetable seed division. She says Bayer is currently talking to farms and salad companies about the best way to grow and package the vegetables.
Pairwise was looking to make salads more appetizing and nutritious, and the company focused on mustard greens because of their high nutritional value, similar to that of kale. But their bitter and spicy taste means they are not usually eaten raw. Instead, they are typically cooked to make them more palatable. Pairwise aimed to tone down the flavor while maintaining all the fiber, antioxidants, and other nutrients that mustard greens offer. The company used Crispr to eliminate several copies of a gene responsible for its pungency. “We think people will really like the taste,” Williams says.
Previously, Pairwise took vegetables to farmers markets for taste testing and explained to shoppers that they were made with gene editing. Tasters were generally positive about the vegetables, according to Pairwise CEO Tom Adams. The company is now focusing its attention on developing pitted cherries and seedless blackberries. “We see our role in the food chain as inventing new products,” he says.
The first Crispr-edited food available to consumers debuted in Japan in 2021 when Tokyo-based startup Sanatech Seed started selling a tomato with high levels of γ-aminobutyric acid, or GABA, a chemical produced in the brain and also found naturally in some foods. The company claims that GABA can help lower blood pressure and promote relaxation.
in a May 28 event in HollandSanatech President Shimpei Takeshita said the company has expanded its distribution in Japan and has completed all regulatory procedures to introduce its tomato in the Philippines. He also intends to bring his edited tomato to the US.
High-GABA mustard greens and tomatoes are not exactly genetically modified organisms or GMOs, at least not in the traditional sense. Typically, GMOs are crops that contain added genetic material from a completely different species. In contrast, gene editing involves modifying an organism’s own DNA.
Williams describes Crispr as a tool that speeds up the reproduction of new plants, allowing scientists to make changes that could possibly occur in nature, but much faster. In the United States, the Department of Agriculture has decided that crops bred through gene editing do not have to go through lengthy regulatory review, reasoning that they do not contain foreign DNA and could otherwise have been developed through conventional breeding, that is, choosing plants mother with certain characteristics to produce offspring with those characteristics.