“Achieving Food Security and Food Sustainability”

In this stars Webinar, stars Alumnus John DIENER, Co-Founder and CEO, Vertical Oceans, Singapore, talked about the challenges of setting up his company, about sustainability, quality, food security and where this industry will be in a couple of years. Some take-aways are:

• Vertical Oceans: start-up that grows sustainable shrimp in huge aquatowers. To see a short introductory video, please click here.
• Context and motivation: aquaculture as a food production model to ensure food security in a sustainable way.
• Unique product: same-day fresh, no chemicals, no antibiotics.
• Going vertical unlocks significant value: fresh-local premium, minimal manpower, energy savings, little land footprint, smaller CO2 footprint.
• First vertical ocean in 2023/24: scaling up rapidly in Europe, North America and Japan.
• Main challenge: establishing a balance between the nutrients added to the system and the nutrients that are converted into a harvestable biomass in that system.
• Trends in food innovation: micro bioprotein production, biomaterials, i.e. leather from mushrooms, seaweed production (cleaning up waters and having interesting ingredients).
• Advice for start-ups: go through a quality accelerator programme, get advice from other people.

To watch the recording of the webinar, please click here.