Rob Fletcher

Alan Espinoza, founder of Bendito Mar, is determined to transform Mexico’s shellfish farming sector in order to improve the environment and create new livelihoods for people in fragile former fishing communities.

Saudi Arabia is set to host its largest ever exhibition related to sustainable seafood production on 4-6 February, with over 12,000 visitors due to attend.

Frank Foolen, general manager of leading Dutch catfish producer Claresse, explains how his family’s self-taught approach and long-term commitment have helped to create a successful and profitable RAS operation.

Jennifer Bushman senses encouraging trends in investment and innovation in – as well as acceptance of – aquaculture, but adds that challenges include the urgent need for the salmon farming industry to work together to address ongoing environmental issues.

While 2023 might have resulted in a number of impressive achievements for Hatch, its co-founder has been underwhelmed by the pace at which the aquaculture industry has been adopting innovation and believes it will be up to five years before many of the most ex…

Investment in seaweed production – not processing – urgently needs to be prioritised, according to leading industry analyst and Phyconomy founder Steven Hermans.

The last 12 months have proved testing for Malaysia’s shrimp and crab farmers, with a number of new entrants going out of business, but a pivot towards the live market has provided a lifeline for Yit Tung, founder of RAS Aquaculture.

After just over a year as CEO of Aqua-Spark, Lissy Smit reflects on the highs and lows of the fund’s portfolio companies and the wider trends affecting investment in aquaculture innovation.

Despite a challenging year for the majority of the world’s shrimp farmers, Willem van der Pijl notes that a number of positives to have emerged over the last 12 months, which could help to strengthen the sector’s long-term resilience.

Professor Kevin Fitzsimmons believes that there are plenty of positives to be taken from the last 12 months in aquaculture and has an optimistic outlook for the sector in 2024 – but mention the fisheries and marine ingredients lobbies to him at your peril.

Next generation sequencing technologies and metagenomics are proving their worth among early aquaculture adopters – in particular RAS operators – according to Matthew Pope, founder and managing director of Esox Biologics.

Living Seas Aquafeeds is using local ingredients, including farmed seaweed and mangrove leaves, as a functional addition to standard feeding regimes, improving water quality, FCRs and shrimp growth, according to Timothy Hromatka, founder of the Indonesian star…

After more than a decade of raising eels, Sara Rademaker, the founder of American Unagi, sees New England’s eel farming sector as having a much greater chance of acceptance – and success – than many of the high profile plans for land-based farms that are curre…

GreenWave – a non-profit co-founded by Bren Smith in 2014 – recently launched a new app called Seaweed Source to facilitate forward contracts and build value chain relationships between growers and buyers in the North American seaweed sector.

China’s shift towards an increasingly Western pattern of seafood production and consumption – one that relies on imports from countries with greater natural capital per capita – appears to be gaining momentum.

Despite its isolated desert location, Naqua – which produces shrimp and barramundi in Saudi Arabia – is in the process of securing sufficient funding to more that double its output to 250,000 tonnes of seafood each year by 2030.

The Ocean 14 Capital fund is approaching the €200 million mark, making it “the largest impact fund in the blue economy”, according to co-founders Chris Gorell Barnes and Francisco Saraiva Gomes, and has recently closed six investments, three of which are not y…

Seawater Cubes have developed a unique RAS designed to produce nearly 8 tonnes of fish from units made from four shipping containers and has recently moved from the pilot to commercial phase.

Although Venezuela has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the hardest countries in the world to do business in, Grupo Lamar is on course to reach 100,000 tonnes of shrimp production next year, offering a ray of economic hope for the struggling nation.…

Blue Pond Group has developed a range of seaweed-based feed supplements that reduce the prevalence of EHP, WFS and EMS in shrimp farming, according to Mauricio Castillo, its CEO and founder.

The effective development of farmed kelp processing could not only replace conventional plastic packing in a range of applications, but also uplift the lives of women around the world, according to Fionnuala Quin, founder and CEO Kelpy.

Operators of many of the sector’s largest recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) have had well-documented struggles to break even. However, Thorsten Vammen claims that the first farm established by Frea Solutions – the Danish trout farming company that he man…

Ecuador’s meteoric growth in shrimp production shows no sign of slowing down – despite the decline in global shrimp prices – according to one of the sector’s leading analysts.

NTT Corporation recently announced a three-step plan, in partnership with Regional Fish Institute, to use RAS facilities to produce fish and shellfish that have been fed on home-grown algae, setting up a joint venture called NTT Green & Food Co.

Combining the tech and investment resources of Silicon Valley with the practical salmon farming expertise of Norway has been crucial to the success of Aquabyte, according to founder and CEO Bryton Shang.

Shrimp farming consultant and hatchery specialist, Philip Buike, was instrumental in getting the first commercial production of post-larvae in Europe off the ground, at a farm run by White Panther in Austria. He is currently involved with the development of va…

A new report on the most exciting emerging market opportunities in the seaweed sector – which has been compiled for the World Bank by Hatch Innovation Services – has recently been published.

Despite being dominated by the production of a single commodity, shrimp farming is a remarkably disparate business with a huge variety of business models and production techniques.

How shrimp producers – and those who provide their feeds – can remain solvent during a time of rock-bottom shrimp prices and record feed costs will form the crux of many of the discussions in the feed session at the forthcoming Global Shrimp Forum.

AMS's Oyster Farming System – an innovation that’s capable of producing 50 dozen unique, premium (75 mm) oysters per lineal metre of farm – is nearing commercial launch.

The second half of 2023 could be “the most challenging period for global aquaculture since the peak of the pandemic in 2020”, while for the shrimp sector it could be the toughest period since the outbreak of EMS in 2011.

Aquanzo, a startup that plans to farm Artemia in land-based systems for the aquafeed market, recently raised £1.2 million to help them to upscale their production.

A comparison of hard data and anecdotal evidence from the world’s key shrimp producing and consuming regions will be the subject of a special two-part plenary session at this year’s Global Shrimp Forum.