“The enthusiasm about our product is off the charts and it’s all about scaling, lowering price points and partnering with great brands and production partners. These partnerships are allowing us to not only launch new products, but to start converting entire product lines with our bio-based product offerings” — Scott Fullbright, Living Ink CEO and co-founder.
Dear algae technologists, operators, and investors, welcome to another edition of the Paxtier Report!
Food for thought this week…
Like many, I’m hopeful for the integration of low-trophic aquaculture into offshore energy environments.
But let’s face it – there are a few key things we need to prioritise:
→ Poor messaging. Too many voices conveying complicated topics. It can be very confusing for potential partners and energy lobby groups to understand the benefits and needs of mariculture players, and why they stand to benefit by adopting co-location. We can move better if we unify and animate as one.
→ Unrealistic business cases. Many offshore, low-trophic businesses approaching energy groups are underdeveloped. Not much to work with for buyer-side decision makers. They are frequently deficient in (A) Clear market and/or (B) Economically feasible technology.
→ Lack of long-term commitment to funding and support from government and investors. This can be a highly CAPEX intensive activity. This needs to be communicated from the beginning. Investors – don’t expect a quick buck. But remember that, over the long-term, this is an amazing diversification strategy with highly productive systems with clear social license benefits for scaling.
If you’re keen to learn more about the science behind co-location, check out this interesting new paper by Maar et al. (2023) on developing multi-use offshore wind farms with low-trophic aquaculture.
In today’s report…
Markets: 🥛 COP28 – Nestlé, Danone among food signatories to Dairy Methane Alliance
Deals: 💸 US and UAE-backed initiative announces USD 9 billion more for agricultural innovation projects
Movers and Shakers: 🌊 Check out Ocean Visions’ latest blue carbon road map
Around the web: 📐 Together with Invest-NL, the seaweed industry has worked on creating design standards for seaweed farms in open water
Markets and Investing
✂️Algae Market Snippets
Some big moves in recent weeks…
General
🌍 Over 130 countries have signed up to the leaders-level ‘COP28 UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action’ (Read more HERE).
🌊 Twelve projects designed to build ocean and coastal resilience through finance and insurance products receive between USD$150,000 and USD$500,000 (Read more HERE).
🐙 Check out DNV’s seafood demand forecast through to 2050 (Read more HERE).
💪 The European Commission and European Investment Bank (EIB) launch ‘EU Blue Champions’ to support innovative projects in the Blue Economy (Read more HERE).
👕 Birla Cellulose, Algaeing to ‘detoxify’ apparel sector with ‘algae-powered’ fibre (Read more HERE).
Macroalgae
🌿 Loss of carrageenan’s organic qualification could cost Philippines USD 115 million (Read more HERE).
👾 Macro Supplies launches Macro AutoFarmer – a 4.5 wet tonne per hour automatic seaweed harvester to help farmers boost productivity and save costs (Read more HERE).
🛰️ Develop an AI algorithm to detect kelp forests from satellite images for a chance to win cash prizes up to $10,500 from MathWorks (Read more HERE).
🥇 Arctic Seaweed announces record breaking seaweed deployment season thanks to direct seeding (Read more HERE).
🌿 Check out ASSA and South Australian Research and Development Institute’s new high tech seaweed research facility, the National Hatchery Network Temperate Research Hub in Adelaide (Read more HERE).
📉 Mootral introduces new methane reduction technology, doubling efficacy using a well-known natural molecule (Read more HERE).
🐟 Canada to spend CAD 12m preserving aquatic ecosystems, including salmon and seaweed in BC (Read more HERE).
🛑 Japan fisheries co-ops to be issued cease-and-desist orders for restricting seaweed sales (Read more HERE).
🥛 COP28 – Nestlé, Danone among food signatories to Dairy Methane Alliance (Read more HERE).
🐠 Bali fishery offices urged to partner with universities to research affordable fish feed (Read more HERE).
🛒 Stella McCartney presents Sustainable Market of material innovations at COP28 (Read more HERE).
💰 Seaweed Generation has gained support through Innovate UK and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) as part of the novel low-emission food production systems competition (Read more HERE).
💄 Malaysian Health Ministry revokes notification of four cosmetic products which contain illegal ingredients (incl. mercury) (Read more HERE).
🥝 Aucklanders encouraged by mayor to support the fight against Caulerpa (Read more HERE).
✂ Australia pledges to cut methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 at COP28 (Read more HERE).
🚀 Check out 5 startups selected by Newlab and Invest Puerto Rico to pilot Sargassum seaweed and waste solutions: CarbonCycle, SOS Carbon, Sway, Thalasso AS, and PANGAIA (Read more HERE).
💸 Researchers awarded $1M to protect coastal communities, aquaculture industry. Project will use biosensors for early detection of waterborne diseases (Read more HERE).
🌊 Opportunities to acquire prime seaweed farming sites in Scotland (Read more HERE).
🌿 Japan plans to subtract ‘Blue Carbon’ from CO2 emissions (Read more HERE).
📐 Together with Invest-NL the seaweed industry has worked on creating design standards for seaweed farms in open water (Read more HERE).
💸 The Russell Family Foundation announces $3.5M in climate grants & investments (Read more HERE).
Microalgae
💊 VivoMega’s new Omega-3 supplements from microalgae gain V-Label Certification (Read more HERE).
🐓 UConn team receives grant to produce organic methionine for poultry (Read more HERE).
🗞️ Aker BioMarine ASA receives purchase orders of USD 6.0 million for algae-based Omega-3 oils (Read more HERE).
💸 Living Ink unveils details of $3.5M funding to scale carbon-negative black pigment (Read more HERE).
🟢 New Hampshire develops first plan to deal with cyanobacteria, as climate change fuels more blooms (Read more HERE).
🐟 Salmon industry ‘needs growth’ from Veramaris after algal oil’s landmark year (Read more HERE).
💨 Zaara Biotech LLC announces the launch of its first Outdoor Algae OXYGEN BAR, named Obelia 2.1 (Read more HERE).
🟢 Environalgae’s pilot Sustainability Research Facility has been developed near Nashik, India to exhibit a working “demo” of algal technology for potential customers (Read more HERE).
💸 US and UAE-backed initiative announces USD 9 billion more for agricultural innovation projects (Read more HERE).
🐦Tweets of the week
🔥 What else was hot in seaweed and microalgae this week?
General
📖 (Paper) Value-added products from algae: Phycochemical Production and Applications (Read more HERE).
🎡 How wind and solar power could become the next fish farms (Read more HERE).
🔜 Carbon removals: How to scale a new gigaton industry (Read more HERE).
🌊 Can the ocean store more carbon than previously believed? (Read more HERE).
Macroalgae
🌿 How can industry turn the tide on seaweed consumption? (Read more HERE).
🌾 EBIC white paper challenges common misconception about the MoA of Seaweed-Based plant biostimulants (Read more HERE).
🌱 Acadian Plant Health™ and World Farmers Organisation launch docuseries (Read more HERE).
🌊 Check out Ocean Visions’ latest blue carbon road map (Read more HERE).
🛍️ (VIDEO) How to make packaging a thing of the past (Notpla) (Read more HERE).
🌿 “Offshore mesophotic kelp forests discovered in the Galápagos” (Read more HERE).
🧬 Bladderwrack and serrated wrack provide unique insights into evolutionary history (Read more HERE).
🌱 Serbia: Methane-reducing feed additive based on brown algae (Read more HERE).
🌲 AFRIMED: revitalising the Mediterranean’s underwater forests (Read more HERE).
🌱 From urchin crushing to lab-grown kelp, efforts to save California’s kelp forests show promise (Read more HERE).
🌊 Wave of new firms looking to take seaweed mainstream (Read more HERE).
🏆 SymbioTex crowned winner of competition for female entrepreneurs (Read more HERE).
🩸 Brown seaweed a promising strategy for blood sugar management (Read more HERE).
🍽️ 1 million sea urchins have now been deployed to eat Kaneohe, Hawaii’s invasive seaweeds (Read more HERE).
🤔 Seaweed farming environments do not always function as CO2 sink under synergistic influence of macroalgae and microorganisms (Read more HERE).
Microalgae
🧪 (Paper) Exogenous arginine promotes coproduction of biomass and astaxanthin in Haematococcus pluvialis (Read more HERE).
👨💻 (Paper) Cracking 6mA code to enhance lipid accumulation in microalgae (Read more HERE).
🌊 Future Ocean Foods “tells a new story for alternative seafood”. Features omega-3 (Read more HERE).
🟢 Spirulina Source release new Europe Spirulina industry report (Read more HERE).
🔮 “Algae is the future”, according to Cawthron Institute’s Science Impact Manager Dr Johan Svenson (Read more HERE).
⛽ Algae as fuel for fixed-wing drones (Read more HERE).
🔆 Study suggests astaxanthin and CrossFit improves metabolic health in obese participants (Read more HERE).
⛷️ WNDR Alpine predicts that the future will run on algae (Read more HERE).
That’s all folks!
Thanks again for joining us this week. Hope you have a great day and stay tuned for more algae tech updates soon!
Best,
Peter
