Cell-based seafood startup BlueNalu is approaching commercialization, and is between 12 and 18 months away from having a seafood product in a test market in the United States.

"We're closer to market than maybe people might have thought just a few years ago," BlueNalu CEO Lou Cooperhouse said during a recent virtual event held by the Institute of Food Technologists.

BluNalu plans to manufacture and sell mahi mahi, red snapper, bluefin tuna and yellowtail species all in the same brewery-like manufacturing facility in San Diego, which it will then ship to US foodservice operators.