Jellyfish as novel food in Mediterranean countries: Blue Growth resource or multi-cultural, ethnic adaptation?

The growing interest in diversification of sustainable food sources and the discoveries on the biological, nutritional and nutraceutical properties of several scyphozoans suggest the Mediterranean jellyfish as potential resource for biotechnological and food production sectors, in line with the EU Blue Growth recommendations. In Eastern Asian countries edible jellyfish represent an appreciated food with a worldwide catch over 1 million tons. The development of a Mediterranean jellyfish food system would require integrated management and sustainable exploitation, embracing ecological, safety, nutritional, legal, economic, social and public acceptance issues. The lack of safety protocols and processing methods for jellyfish products in compliance with EU rules, together with a restricted market size, resulted in the absence of a comprehensive food system, from harvesting to processing to consumption. Investigations on innovative processing methodologies and their effect on the biochemical features of key components (eg collagen) are leading to considering Mediterranean jellyfish as putative food or feed ingredient or as a still unexplored resource for bioprospecting. Recent biochemical research on the composition of Mediterranean jellyfish demonstrated the occurrence of bioactive metabolites with antioxidant and cancer-preventive properties. It is worth investigating the potential of a jellyfish productive system based on culturable species, or as a case-by-case local adaptation against massive jellyfish outbreaks recognized as damaging to local economies. The involvement of multiple stakeholder categories, including productive sectors, managers of biodiversity conservation, as well as potential consumers and final users, will be key to the socio-economic and ecological assessment of a new sustainable jellyfish food/feed processing system.