John Diener, CEO of an aquaculture nutrition and genetics company, has visited hundreds of shrimp farms. He was often horrified by it: on many of these farms the practices adopted are unsustainable on an environmental level. Not to mention the repercussions on consumer health, undermined by the abuse of antibotics and other supplements to make these crustaceans grow "better". This is why Diener decided to do away with "traditional methods" and literally built a new production and business model.
Vertical Oceans, shrimp farmed “vertically”
The result of Diener's efforts is Vertical Oceans, a startup created together with an Italian data scientist, Enzo Acerbi. What does Vertical Oceans do? Grow sustainable shrimp in huge “aquatic towers” that can be placed within cities – essentially vertical farms. Urban aquatic towers can incubate shrimp without using chemicals or antibiotics, at any time of the year: even out of season.
Not bad, if you consider that the global shrimp market is worth over 50 billion euros a year.
As far as I know, it is the first time that Silicon Valley investors have bet on aquaculture: I consider it not a very weak signal of the direction that food production will take. In the last 6 months, Vertical Oceans has already harvested 10 crops at its test facility. Guess where it is? But obviously, in the world center ofvertical food factories“: in Singapore.
Anywhere and anyway
Our aquatic tower-raised shrimp tastes just like fresh ones from the ocean. This is really difficult to achieve consistently in a recirculating aquaculture system. Because our product is so fresh and high quality, we can sell at a price equal to that of freshly caught product, and at a higher price than frozen shrimp. A price that more than compensates for the costs of switching to the vertical and urban farming system.
John Diener, Vertical Oceans
The system is designed to be a “position indifferent” vertical farm. This works in all cities, including those with cold winters (like Chicago). From Singapore, I bet, it will go around the world, shrimp by shrimp.
