Catch the opportunity
This article builds further on our previous article The ocean and its problems: Has the boat sunk? and connects the long and depressing list of problems with a list of promising solutions.
Overfishing
The simplest way to stop overfishing, is to stop eating fish. And in reality, this might eventually be easier than you would think. A long time ago we (Trellis Road) published Fish(ish) Startup Landscape. A lot has happened since, with plenty of new startups in the space, which makes it easier for consumers to shift to a more sustainable diet. Next to this, we are getting better at mitigating the impact the current aqua food systems have.
1. Sustainable fish farming
The current ways of fish farming are far from healthy, for us and the planet. Where can one start making this food system more sustainable?
- Mitigating the fish deceased: Stingray Marine Solutions and Blue Lice amongst others are developing technology to combat diseases — especially sea lice — in high-density pens. FeedVax and Microsynbiotix aim to limit the use of antibiotics and decrease mortality rates.
- Mitigating the harmful effluents: Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture (IMTA) means growing seaweed and shellfish next to the fish farm absorbing its effluents and creating a more balanced food system. Alternatively one can take fish farming far offshore. Open ocean farming benefits from strong currents that dilute any waste into the open ocean and constantly provide the fish with clean swimming water. Forever Ocean, Open Blue, Gili Ocean Technologies and Ocean Era are companies that see this approach as the sustainable answer.
- On-land farming: Others are even bolder, and although it may be a step forward regarding waste management, land-based fish farming still struggles with unsustainable feed sourcing and the need for antibiotics. Note that the level of sustainability is different if a Recirculating Aquaculture System (can be placed close to the market) or, a more traditional Flow-Through Systems (closed next to coastline) is used.
- Sustainable feed: All solutions mentioned above still need large quantities of fish feed. And that feed consists of a large percentage of unsustainable marine-based ingredients, such as fish meal, fish oil, whole fish and by-products. Innovators started exploring alternative sources, such as feed based on algae, insects, fermentation or others. Others choose to farm omnivore or herbivore fish, such as Tilapia and pangasius, which reduces the need for enormous amounts of high-protein feed.
2. Sustainable fishing
Let me kick at an open door, it’s not going well with the wild fish stocks. So, should we stop fishing?
Fishing isn’t a problem, unsustainable fishing is.
Says the World Wide Fund for nature. But how does sustainable fishing look like? According to the UNCTAD three things are essential;
- Scientific quota’s
- Protected breeding grounds
- Regulated by-catch
Easier said than done… Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing makes the real volume of fish caught unknown, making managing the fish stocks in a sustainable way impossible. IUU fishing annually accounts for 26 million tonnes of fish and costs up to $23B per year globally.
Startups like Xerra, ATLAN Space and Pelagic Data Systems are building tools that make effective monitoring, control, and surveillance (MCS) a more straightforward task, on high seas or in developing countries.
But is fish the only food that the oceans can offer?
The one-million-dollar question is: How can we turn problems, like acidification and eutrophication, into opportunities with sustainable food systems?
Many are advocating seaweed as the saviour of the ocean. Not surprisingly, its curriculum vitae is almost spotless.
More than a decade ago, the western world started realizing these benefits of seaweed. Since then, many innovators pushed their startups through R&D, and pilot projects.
Let’s go through the value chain.
1. Farming
There are three ways to farm seaweed at sea: macro-farm, micro-farms, and harvesting seaweed blooms.
- Macro farming: Ocean rainforest (Faroe Islands) led the pack in experimenting with larger-scale farming in 2010. Soon others followed in other parts of the world. Seaweed solutions (Norway), Nordic Seafarm (Sweden), Cascadia Seaweed(Canada) and The Seaweed Company (The Netherlands) are some of the main players in the Western industry.
- Micro farming: Atlantic Sea Farms (US), Coast 4C (Australia) and KOASTAL (Sweden) support individuals with tools and services to start their own farming activity. This brings social benefits to seaweed cultivation by providing jobs and economic activity.
- Harvesting blooms: Easy Harvest (Portugal), Ocean Barriers (Mexico), The ocean cleaner (France) and others are harvesting algae blooms (see the related article the ocean and its problems). They develop tools to predict where blooms will be and to harvest the seaweed before it starts degrading resulting in large amounts of low-cost seaweed.
Since seaweed grows significantly faster than terrestrial plants, a seaweed farm can yield many large quantities of biomass per hectare. Knowing the ocean covers 2/3 of the planet, capitalizing on this resource can prove fruitful.
2. Applications
The lack of valorisation of seaweed has been one of the main barriers to unlocking the true potential of the seaweed industry. Finding profitable applications is therefore key. This article follows Trellis road’s focus on food.
Human food
Seaweed is rich in carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins and essential micronutrients, particularly antioxidants. There is more promising news: seaweed has low-fat content but is a great source of essential fatty acids. Where do you think fish got all that omega-3 from? A more elaborate discussion on the potential health benefits of seaweed can be found here.
Dinner is ready! What is served?
- Whole-leaf approach: After blanching, freezing and/or drying raw seaweed, they produce food products that carry the benefits seaweed provides. Think of seaweed chips, crackers, sauces, pestos, burgers, you name it! These products of the whole-leaf approach tend to be less processed, more organic and natural.
- Biorefinery approach: Different components, such as polysaccharides, fatty acids, oils antioxidants, natural pigments and proteins are extracted from the seaweed to be later processed into food products or other applications. To ensure a maximum valorisation of the seaweed, the cascade concept of the biorefinery should be fully embraced, extracting the high-value components first, whereafter the low-value components.
Oceanium is the leader in the biorefinery of seaweed, but also other companies like Origin by Ocean, Algaia, Alginor, Macro Oceans, GOA venture are amongst others developing their own biorefinery technology to valorise seaweed better.
With a gold rush towards alt proteins, there is an extra big interest in the extraction of proteins from seaweed. However, it seems less straightforward than its land-based cousins:
A major obstacle for protein extraction is the complex polysaccharide matrix in the cell-wall .
So, it’s wrong to claim that the seaweed alt protein is already here, but that doesn’t mean it never will. Countless academics and R&D teams are working hard to crack this code. Keep an eye on this!
Feed (animal food)
Let me blow you away with a fact: incorporating seaweed in the diet of cows or other ruminants, reduces their methane emission by approximately 80%! This is a great opportunity since the livestock industry accounts for as much as 44% of global anthropogenic methane emissions.
Seaweeds, but especially Asparagopsis Taxiformis, contain high levels of trihalomethanes, such as bromoform (CHBr3). These molecules inhibit the formation of methane out of H2 and CO2 (aka methanogens) in the rumen of the animal.
After this discovery in 2018, Symbosia and Blue Ocean Barn quickly brought Asparagopsis-based supplements onto the market. CH4 Global and Volta Greentech followed and the latter brought the first “methane-reduced beef” to the Swedish markets earlier this year.
Moreover, seaweed — loaded with bioactive metabolites — increases the overall health and growth rates of livestock. With these positive results, companies like North Atlantic Organics and Nuqo started to use it as feed in an attempt to improve the health and sustainability of these industries. Moreover, Seaweed for Dogs, Mannasol and others produce pet food with seaweed and Agrisea even feeds it to bees.
The army of sea urchins
Next to cultivating a bunch of seaweed, the protection of the wild kelp forest that our oceans house deserves our attention. Kelp forests have been disappearing due to rising temperatures, acidification and sea urchins at rates of up to 90% in some areas.
The startup Urchinomics explores the opportunity to eat the exploding populations of sea urchins that are devouring kelp forests. Aristotle’s Lantern and Marauder Robotics are other examples of innovators starting to harvest sea urchins to help restore the ocean forests and simultaneously produce a delicacy.
What do we take away from this?
The long list of problems needs to find a long list of solutions. Innovators are showing sustainable concepts in the blue economy. I would like the key message from this summary to be that the ocean’s problems are at the same time great opportunities for sustainable food systems.
It’s up to our generation to redirect the ship and catch these opportunities.
Honourable mentions
The encyclopaedia of the seaweed industry is without a doubt the Phyconomy database. It has gathered all companies, investors, grants, research institutes and much more in this emerging industry. If you’re looking for something, I wouldn’t know a better place.
