Hot topics

The conference programme for Seafood Expo Global 2022 focused on the global economy, technology and sustainability in the seafood industry

For those hoping that the return of the Expo as an inperson event might herald the end of a turbulent time for the global economy, keynote speaker Megan Greene had little to say that was comforting.

Greene is a Senior Fellow with the Mossovar-Rahmani Centre for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, a Senior Fellow with Chatham House and a columnist with the Financial Times.

In a talk titled “Uncertainty Abounds” she painted a picture of the post-Covid world. The upside is that recovery, from the initial impact of Covid-19 and the lockdown measures adopted around the world as a result of it, has been faster than Greene and many other economists had predicted.

The downside is that this recovery has, for most economies, been accompanied by the return of inflation as labour costs and commodity prices have spiralled. Only in Japan has inflation been, if anything, too low.

Meanwhile, Greene said, the Eurozone and the UK have been facing inflation driven principally by rising energy and food costs, while in the US it has been driven by other factors including a huge fiscal stimulus by government to keep the economy going through the pandemic, which Greene said had turned from “tailwind to headwind” for the economy.

Greene said she was confident that the US is not heading for recession – in the next 12 months, anyway – and she expected to see a “tepid recovery” in Europe.

For the seafood industry, prices have been rising but so have costs. Continuing supply chain problems arising from China’s hardline “zero Covid” strategy and energy and other commodity price hikes as a result of the war in Ukraine and the resulting sanctions on Russia.

Greene also warned that while rising commodity prices will help some emerging economies others are at serious risk of default.

Also in the conference programme, a panel of senior figures in the finance sector discussed the role of venture capital in helping the seafood industry to grow and develop. The moderator for the panel was Larsen Mettler, Managing Director – Oceans and Seafood and the other participants were Georg Baunach of Hatch Blue, Chris Gorell Barnes of Ocean 14 Capital, Carlos Esteban of Faber Blue

Pioneers Fund, Christian Lim of SWEN Blue Ocean, Amy Novogratz of AquaSpark and Nutreco’s Erik Tveretaas.

Amy Novogratz explained that her fund’s strategy had evolved, with the realisation that it was not enough to invest in “sustainable aquaculture” – it’s necessary to ensure that sustainability is part of the whole supply chain, including feed, traceability and logistics.

Christian Lim said that to make an impact, funds needed to work together and the investee companies also need to collaborate, with each other and with larger companies.

Chris Gorell Barnes argued that “sustainability” is not enough, adding:

“We have to make sure that we regenerate the ocean.”

His fund, Ocean 14, requires every potential investment to have a detailed impact action plan as well as a financial plan, linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 14 (which addresses the state of the marine environment).

Georg Baunach at Hatch Blue said that the salmon sector, dominated by large, consolidated players, was less open to radically new technology and more focused on incremental cost reduction. In contrast, he said, shrimp production, with a large number of smaller businesses, was a sector in which technology could make a significant difference.

What areas did the panel see as especially promising for innovation in the seafood industry? Carlos Esteban picked the application of artificial intelligence, for example systems to give early warning of harmful algal blooms.

Other key areas suggested by the panel included sustainable feed alternatives, improved traceability, the digitisation of aquaculture and the use of eDNA (environmental DNA) to analyse ocean life at a low cost.

Other sessions at the conference included a discussion of A Greener Blue, a new, digital, open source platform being developed in association with Google that captures the sustainable production practices and ecosystem benefits provided by producers across the globe; a session on ethics in seafood supply chains; a presentation on the WaSeaBi project, an EUfunded initiative to find better ways to use the “sidestreams” from fish processing; an update from the UN

Food and Agricultural Organisation; and a discussion on how far we can realistically expect to be able to replace marine ingredients in aquafeed. Technology, sustainability and the seafood industry’s “licence” to operate were key, interlinked themes for Barcelona 2022 and are likely to be talking points for the foreseeable future.

We have to make sure that we regenerate the ocean