Four seafood trends with the legs (or fins) to remake the sector

As technology improves by leaps and sustainability practices become the norm, the future is even brighter than we thought

Deep water aquaculture as practiced by Kampachi Farms (above) and other modern fish farms takes a proactive approach by monitoring fish health, using high-quality feeds, and preventing escapes.

Four years into building the Fish 2.0 network, I thought I could see the future of seafood 10 years on the horizon, and at the dawn of 2017 I boldly called out seven seismic changes I thought we would see by 2027. Turns out I was wrong.

Halfway through 2019, as we reviewed the global range of businesses coming to workshops and our online portals, I realized that most of the shifts I’d identified were happening much faster than I’d thought possible. So I updated my forecast for TechCrunch, anticipating we’d see this new reality as early as 2022:

Seafood has blown past its iceberg lettuce stage and entered trendy greens territory, with eaters loading up on oceanic superfoods and falling in love with previously unknown species as fast as daters swipe right. Even inland-dwelling locavores can easily satisfy their seafood cravings. What once was waste is now a premium snack, or maybe a wallet. We get that farmed fish is good — in every sense of that word. Mystery fish are a thing of the past. Sustainability is a minimum standard, not a luxury.

I’ve written about the individual trends driving us toward this future as they emerged through four cycles of Fish 2.0. Looking back with the fresh perspective of the culminating Fish 2.0 Global Innovators Forum, I’ve selected four shifts — from broad transformations to influential trends — that I’m confident have legs (or maybe that should be fins).

Seaworthy robots like the Nammu patrol open-ocean farms and send data about the fish and water conditions to phones and computers on boats and land.

1. The rise of seatech

The information technology and biotech revolutions were slow to reach the seafood industry, but now they’re on the verge of transforming everything from land-based fish farming to deep-sea fishing. With applications in areas including climate change adaptation, supply chain transparency, improved aquaculture production and better fisheries management, seatech promises to be at least as big an opportunity as the agtech wave that preceded it — it’s playing a role in all the three trends below.

App-connected underwater sensors, robots and cameras, along with big data tools, are creating an Internet of Fish. Biotech startups are improving the health of farmed fish and bringing us closer to fish-free feeds for aquaculture and agriculture. And blockchain solutions, hyperspectral imaging and other technologies are bringing much-needed traceability and transparency to the seafood supply chain. It will soon be possible for seafood buyers to see where a fish or even a fish fillet was caught, the dock it was hauled up on, the temperature it’s been kept at, and more.

Recirculating aquaculture systems could supply a market hungry for healthy, clean seafood.

2. The aquaculture revolution

I’ve been saying farmed fish are good without hesitation because the aquaculture sector is undergoing a revolution. Startups as well as agribusinesses are developing feed ingredients that leave wild forage fish in the ocean, including proteins made from bacteria that eat climate-warming methane from industrial emissions. The growing fish health field is taking a pass on antibiotics and chemicals and focusing instead on early detection, natural remedies and nutraceuticals (yes, fish will soon be gulping probiotics like the rest of us). New offshore farm systems sit in the open ocean (away from sensitive coastlines), yet tightly control water exchange and prevent fish escapes.

Meanwhile, land-based aquaculture — shrimp farms in the desert, salmon swimming “upstream” in tanks in tropical climates, tilapia swishing over the plains — is gaining momentum as a viable alternative to wild-caught or sea-farmed products.

Reduce wrinkles and get your micronutrients. Algae has applications in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and nutritional supplements, and other fields.

3. The glamour of algae

I now love algae. This diverse group of fast-growing aquatic plants is rapidly shedding its green-slime image and becoming a glamorous super-ingredient, with applications in several massive industries: fish and other animal feeds, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, nutritional supplements, bioplastics and fertilizers.

Single-cell microalgae, high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids, are essential feed ingredients for the shellfish industry and a good alternative to scarce fish oil. Macroalgae, such as seaweed and kelp, are artisanal ingredients in high-value products including cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and a range of foods, for both fish and humans. (We sampled kelp ravioli at the Forum, and you’ve probably seen kelp chips on the salty snack aisle as a healthier alternative.) They’re also relatively easy to grow in coastal areas. This makes them great economic development tools for fishing communities: algae farming can boost household incomes and provide work for fishers when weather is bad or quotas are exhausted.

North Carolina’s Sandbar Oyster Co. uses new substrate materials that allow oyster production to flourish without destroying the larger habitat zones.

4. The resurgence of oyster farming

Oyster farming is the seed of a budding regenerative aquaculture category that parallels the regenerative agriculture movement and also includes multispecies kelp and fish farms.

Once so plentiful their shells were crushed to pave roads along the East and Gulf Coasts, oyster fisheries were decimated by dredging, overharvesting and habitat destruction. Now oyster farming is springing back to life, not only because the mollusks are a distinctively local delicacy experiencing fast-growing demand, but also because they clean water and improve coastal climate resilience. Ocean entrepreneurs are optimizing their production by developing new substrates to replace lost oyster beds, applying real-time data and diagnostic tools to ensure oyster health, developing hatcheries to restock populations and using online platforms to sell direct to consumers.

A global network supports sustainable innovation

None of this was happening when we launched Fish 2.0 in 2013, but today, sustainable seafood is an exciting innovation field, with the potential to improve ocean health while ultimately remaking the over $390 billion global seafood industry.

This has a lot to do with the sheer number of talented entrepreneurs and investors entering the seafood sector. The more ideas and technologies we put in play, the more hits we’re going to have. It also has to do with the growing worldwide web of connections that Fish 2.0 was designed to create: governments, big industry players, entrepreneurs and investors are working together on seafood sustainability like never before.

And that makes me confident that my most cherished prediction from 2017 will prove true: We’ll stop using the term “sustainable seafood,” because sustainability will just be intrinsic to the word seafood.

Want to dive deeper? Fish 2.0 produced 27 investor briefs on the trends above and many other topics — check them out here.