The Fremantle based start-up, SeaStock, was selected from more than 1200 companies who participated in MassChallenge Switzerland to receive the non-diluted CHF 100,000 (€103,888) LDC Climate Resilience Prize in May earlier this year.
SeaStock identifies high value natural compounds derived from native seaweeds in Western Australian waters for use in agricultural livestock feeds, which have been shown to lower methane emissions in ruminant livestock by 80 percent, or more.
Currently, SeaStock is one of only nine companies globally to be licensed by global IP patent holder Future Feed to supply their Asparagopsis-based methane-reducing feed ingredient commercially.
MassChallenge president, Ian Roberts, said in a press release that: “SeaStock was named as LDC Climate Resilience Prize Laureate because of its potential to deliver rapid impact by cutting emissions from the world’s dairy and beef herds.” They also stated: “SeaStock provides a solution that can plug into the existing supply chain, thus scale fast to cut emissions in the short and medium term.”
SeaStock has filed patents covering a novel method to cultivate and replicate the reproductive lifecycle stages of Asparagopsis taxiformis seaweed and a novel method to efficiently extract the natural compounds from within the seaweed.
It was noted that LDC CEO, Michael Gelchie, was honoured to present the Climate Prize to SeaStock: “whose impressive solution to produce and extract compounds derived from seaweed and algae shows great potential to drive climate resilience across several value chains and industries.”
Tom Puddy, managing director at SeaStock, stated: “Winning the LDC Climate Resilience Award is global recognition and validation that our innovative approach to seaweed cultivation and processing is commercially scalable and can have a direct impact on reducing methane emissions from livestock.”
MassChallenge Switzerland’s partners Buhler Group, Givaudan, Nestle, DSM, Louis Dreyfus Company and Sudzucker promote the challenge with the aim of identifying startups or scaleups with proven solutions or technology in the areas of sustainable food and feeding solutions, sustainable supply chain and manufacturing, sustainable packaging, and agri tech.
MassChallenge Switzerland shortlisting means companies are given a direct pathway to multi-national corporations to explore ways to collaborate with them and to assist them to scale their technology.
