BRIGHT IDEAS

The Summit also provided an opportunity for start-ups to set out their stall. Six innovators took part in a pitch session:

BIOFEYN – this company has developed a biodegradable shell around feed pellets to help deliver functional feed. It has taken existing nutrient systems developed for human consumption, and applied them to aquaculture.

LUMINIS WATER TECHNOLOGIES – has developed a microbiome-based analysis of water quality. The company’s “AquaGENius” testing kit provides a microbiome profile in any kind of water, fresh or seawater. It also has specialist kits for biofilms and swabs for guts, gills and lesions.

RESHORE – uses natural infrastructure to protect the shoreline against erosion – a “living breakwater”. Its innovation is a floating breakwater combined with a regenerative aquaculture solution, growing shellfish and seaweed, and currently being trialled at Scheveningen in the Netherlands.

SEA GREEN – applying research, data and traceability to the Asian seaweed market in the form of the Sea Green app. Free for farmers to download, it takes a small percentage of each sale of the farmer’s seaweed. The company aims to reach 20,000 farms in the next five years; there are about 200,000 families involved in farming seaweed in Indonesia alone. Sea Green is already working with around 1,000 farms in that country.

TEORA – this technology platform can rapidly design low-cost growth enhancement and oral disease prevention solutions for aquaculture, by producing specific, proprietary small proteins using precision fermentation of yeast. The estimated cost per kilo of shrimp is just 20c.

UNDERSEE – a system that brings predictability to forecasting, for example sea temperature forecasts or likely algal blooms, using sensors fitted on ships working at sea. The company is based in Coimbra, Portugal.