From problem to solution: european jellyfish on western menus?

Jellyfish outbreaks are increasingly frequent in many coastal regions. Seasonally, billions of jellyfish prey on larvae of commercially important fish and shellfish, compete with them for food, clog fishermen's gears, and affect maritime tourism. In spite of their negative impacts, jellyfish may turn into a resource and economic opportunity. Jellyfish as food is a consolidated tradition in Southeastern Asia, and jellyfish fishery has reached an average global catch around 1 million tons (GIBBONS et al., 2016). However, jellyfish-based products are traditionally processed by unsafe preservative treatments as alum salts, and traceability issues and mislabeling are being frequently reported. In Europe, the lack of safe protocols and processing methods in compliance with EU rules, together with legal restraints and restricted market size, resulted in the absence of a comprehensive jellyfish food system, from harvesting to processing to consumption. Recently, research identified three scyphozoan jellyfish (Cotylorhiza tuberculata, Rhizostoma pulmo and Aurelia coerulea) as biomasses potentially useful for the biotechnological and food production sectors, also because of the occurrence of bioactive metabolites with antioxidant and cancer-preventive properties (LEONE et al., 2013; LEONE et al., 2015; D'AMICO et al., 2017). By investigating on innovative processing methodologies, the newly funded H2020 EU project Go-Jelly will deal with Mediterranean jellyfish as putative food or feed ingredient or for bioprospecting. Controlled fishery and exploitation of wild jellyfish (including aliens) may represent local adaptation against seasonal outbreaks, but the potential of a productive system based on cultivable jellyfish will be explored together with a risk assessment procedure to disclose the potential impacts on both consumers and ecosystem health, and to regulate their commercialization. The involvement of multiple stakeholder categories, including producers, managers of biodiversity conservation, as well as professional chefs and potential consumers, will be key to the socio-economic and ecological assessment of a new sustainable jellyfish food/feed processing system. Scientific demonstration of jellyfish nutraceutical and health properties, improvement of processing methodologies and introduction of jellyfish as ingredient to the Mediterranean cuisine may contribute to enlarge the jellyfish market to Western Countries, turning European jellyfish into a EU approved "novel food".