A North Carolina startup is using Crispr gene editing to compress decades of crop breeding into a few years, targeting seedless, thornless and higher-yielding blackberry plants that could help jump-start a new agricultural revolution, according to a WIRED report headlined "Seedless Blackberries and Cherries That Grow on Bushes Vie to Be the Future of Food." Pairwise's "triple-threat berries" will not be in US groceries before 2030, WIRED reported, but the company is also developing peaches without pits, disease-resistant row crops and fruit and nut trees that produce their first harvest in one to two years rather than three to eight.
The Promise of Speed and Precision
WIRED described modern genomics as introducing "speed, precision, and the ability to solve multiple problems at once" to the "glacially slow, haphazard, one-tweak-at-a-time world of crop breeding." Pairwise's blackberry program aims to eliminate the seeds that get stuck in teeth and the thorns that make berries hard to pick, while producing more berries per acre with less water and fewer chemicals. The company is pursuing these goals in partnership with some of the world's largest agribusinesses, according to WIRED.
Regulatory Track Record and Commercial Status
So far, the market for gene-edited food is "almost entirely theoretical," WIRED reported. Pairwise launched the first Crispr product in the US in 2023 — a less bitter mustard green — but said it was discontinuing the product in early 2024 in favor of developing other gene-edited crops. Today, the company has received more than 50 regulatory approvals for five edited crops in nine countries, but it has only one creation for sale: a high-yielding blackberry variety available in limited quantities in Colombia. Unlike GMOs, Crispr seeds haven't yet faced major roadblocks from regulators or intense hostility from the public, according to WIRED.
| Product / development | Status reported by WIRED |
|---|---|
| Seedless, thornless, higher-yielding blackberry | Not in US groceries before 2030 |
| High-yielding blackberry variety | On sale in limited quantities in Colombia |
| Less bitter mustard green (first US Crispr product) | Launched 2023; discontinued early 2024 |
| Regulatory approvals | More than 50 approvals for five edited crops in nine countries |
| Peaches without pits; disease-resistant row crops; early-harvest fruit/nut trees | In development, often with major agribusiness partners |
Consumer Backlash Risk
Crispr was invented in 2012, and WIRED noted there is still danger that it could get swept up in the political and cultural backlash against "Frankenfoods" that has limited the impact of GMOs. WIRED cited the rise of the Make America Healthy Again movement as a symptom of growing consumer discomfort with edible technology. GMOs remain unpopular despite decades of scientific evidence that they don't harm human health or the environment, and even industry analysts who consider Crispr safer and more useful are reluctant to predict the success of the next revolution, according to WIRED.
"Historically, there's been so much pushback against genetic engineering in agriculture," Julius Beau Lucks, codirector of Northwestern University's Center for Synthetic Biology, said in the WIRED report. "I don't know if we'll see it again with editing, but if we do, it will be really hard to solve the world's food problems."
Supply-Side Stakes for Global Agriculture
The implications extend well beyond berries. WIRED reported the world is on track to deforest another dozen California's worth of land for agriculture by 2050, and over the next few decades farmers will need to produce much more food while using much less land and doing less damage to nature. Pairwise scientists believe Crispr can help farmers grow healthier and more abundant food in a warming world, with significantly less deforestation, agri-chemicals and greenhouse gas emissions. The company is already developing an enormous pipeline of new crops customized for higher yields and longer shelf life, according to WIRED. Meanwhile, competing technological fixes have struggled in the marketplace, including:
- Vertical farms
- Artificial-intelligence-driven tractors
- Less resource-intensive meat substitutes forged from plants or animal cells
For commodity market participants tracking agricultural supply chains, the timeline from WIRED's reporting is long but concrete: Pairwise's flagship berries will not be in US groceries before 2030, and the company's only commercialised gene-edited crop today is a high-yielding blackberry sold in limited quantities in Colombia. WIRED also reported that even industry analysts who consider Crispr safer and more useful are reluctant to predict the success of the next revolution, with the Make America Healthy Again movement cited as a symptom of consumer discomfort with edible technology.
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