SPEAKERS
Lourdes Gant, Shaun O’Loughlin
Lourdes Gant 00:05
As a business owner of an aquaculture company, how can you take the first step to be profitable and sustainable at the same time? That’s what we’re going to be talking about in these episodes. Hello, and welcome to the business of agriculture podcast. This is the podcast for the Sustainable Business movement in the aquafarming and ocean ranching industries.
This podcast aims to amplify the voices of entrepreneurs addressing the United Nation global goals, aka Sustainable Development Goals. Number 14. To conserve and sustainably use the oceans and the seas, listening to fellow business aquaculturists in their journey in this new model of food production, of making their business sustainable, and help the ecology of the ocean, while also making a profit all at the same time. Get inspired to learn how even small to medium businesses can make an impact, save the seas, leave a legacy, and have a better quality of life. One of our goals is to take away a nugget of wisdom that will help your business move from the industrial revolution to business 5.0.
Our vision is that of collaboration in the aquaculture industry. I’m Laura Gant your host. As an agriculture business owner, you need the alliance to have a supporter in this industry. How do you tackle the balanced in being able to run a sustainable business and an impeccable reputation management system at the same time? That’s what we’re going to be talking about in this episode. Welcome to episode five of the business of agriculture. In this episode, I’m honored to have the host of Global Aquaculture Alliance Academia podcast, Shaun O’Loughlin. Welcome, Shaun.
Shaun O’Loughlin 01:54
Hi, thanks for having me.
Lourdes Gant 01:56
Shaun is the learning solutions developer at the Aquaculture Alliance. He’s responsible for the development and implementation of education assets surrounding aquaculture and seafood education. He’s also a writer, host, producer and editor of the academia podcast. Welcome again, Shawn. I love that education asset. I really hear that. So that’s really cool, I guess the job description hey.
Shaun O’Loughlin 02:21
Thank you very much.
Lourdes Gant 02:22
So listen in. And I hope you enjoy this episode. If you listen to our fourth episode, I interviewed Mr. Jim Gibbons, who is the CEO and founder of Shadow Shellfish, who discuss with us how the value of relationships in the business of aquaculture helped him get funding from his enterprise projects. So this is kind of a continuation along that same line, because you guys are a big supporter of the seafood industry. And of course, agriculture’s fair. Welcome again, Shaun.
Shaun O’Loughlin 02:48
Yep. everything you just said is it sounds great. Have you released that episode yet?
Lourdes Gant 02:53
No, our launch is still going to be made.
Shaun O’Loughlin 02:56
That’s what I thought I was like, I didn’t I didn’t get a chance to hear that.
Lourdes Gant 03:01
Alrighty but I’m just actually stoked on how exciting. This affair is I’m new into this. But I sent an invitation to I was just thinking 15 episodes, and all of them said yes. So I’m catching up with the recording.
Shaun O’Loughlin 03:15
is fun. It is.
Lourdes Gant 03:18
Yeah, you’ve been in it for a year now. So you’re no better. So maybe you can give me some tips as well?
Shaun O’Loughlin 03:23
Sure. Well, I’ve been podcasting for years now. I actually have a couple of independent podcasts. I started back in 2011, maybe with the independent one that kind of fizzled out. And I have another one outside of GA as well. So yeah, I’m living in the podcast world quite a bit.
Lourdes Gant 03:39
I got to learn how to say shoulder of giants.
Shaun O’Loughlin 03:45
Well, it’s still such a young media, you know, it’s still kind of like everyone’s still kind of trying to figure it out. So it’s great to get in it now and be part of that this new media that is still developing and probably is just going to keep growing and taking off in the future.
Lourdes Gant 03:58
Yeah, I’m glad that you said that. I was hesitant at first to be actually being able to do this because I thought oh, you know, in the launch of the clubhouse, I don’t know, maybe podcasting is going to be obsolete. But I’m actually quite pleased to know that it’s gaining a lot more traction. And interestingly, I just found out yesterday, I found this podcast magazine. I’ll send that to you. But they were saying even in the other countries actually clubhouses already being banned in China. So that makes it more interesting for the podcasting world, I think to gain more traction.
Shaun O’Loughlin 04:30
Yeah, well, there’s a lot of websites that are banned in China that are used throughout the world. But I know that there’s a lot of podcasters that are utilizing clubhouse for networking and stuff. They’re using it to help benefit and grow the podcast industry as a whole.
Lourdes Gant 04:44
Yeah, it was quite exciting. So maybe you can give me a bit of a background on how you got started into this not only with the global agriculture Alliance, but I guess, in this world of education assets. I love that term.
Shaun O’Loughlin 04:58
Sure. So I went to The University of Rhode Island after high school, I was studying aquaculture and fishery technology. And after that, I worked in zebrafish lab, raising zebrafish for biomedical research, and found my way to the Global Aquaculture Alliance trying to get more involved in the seafood aspect of it, and didn’t really want to go down the road of becoming a lab manager that kind of wasn’t really in my plan.
So transitioned over to seafood working as a VAP specialist. And because of most of my prior experience with jobs and stuff, most of my family was teachers. So I did a lot of substitute teaching, I was a substitute teacher for five years, and I worked at a lot of camps doing education, and at the New England Aquarium in the education department for a while. So I had a lot of education experience, and I had schooling education about agriculture and fishery technology.
So I was able to transition from VAP specialist over to the education department. And we call them educational assets. Because we don’t only, you know, teach courses, we have some online courses on the Global Agriculture Academy. But that’s not all we do is teach courses. We also create educational videos, the podcast, and a lot of other things that could just be considered educational in different types of media. So we call them all educational assets.
Lourdes Gant 06:25
That’s very cool. I really like that. And one thing that I like about podcasting is I get to learn a lot from the people I interviewed. Just on my second episode, I was interviewing Mr. Bill Collins of Cascadia. And they were talking about pivoting the word sustainability to be in climate-positive just because maybe sustainability is gaining a lot more of different connotations or what it shouldn’t be.
But thank you for sharing about that background that you have. I like that you have that hands-on experience in aquaculture. I don’t I’ve been in this industry now for 13 years, but I’m mostly how do they call it an armchair manager. But I love that your experience with VAP as a technician gives you I guess, a little bit more understanding on how the people in the industry work. So based on that experience, can you give our listeners a bit of background on what you’ve seen as the pros and cons of being in the aquaculture industry.
Shaun O’Loughlin 07:26
I think being in the aquaculture industry is always tough, because you’re always, at least from my perspective, because my job is to talk about it with people, right. And so you’re kind of always on the defensive a little bit because there are a lot of negative views and negative connotations toward aquaculture, which is usually due to a lack of information or a lack of accurate information.
And so, going into the depending on what side of the industry you’re in, it can seem like a challenge quite a bit to kind of like do your job, but then also have to defend the industry that you work in, you know, it’s kind of a tough place to be in.
But, you know, working as a VAP specialist was really fascinating, because you’re talking to the people that are out there actually growing the fish are processing the fish, you’re talking to the QA managers at the processing plants and the people who are actually out there running, you know, sorry, I didn’t get back to your email right away, you know, we had a disease breakout in one of our tanks, and I had to go do some, you know, or there was a leak in RES system.
So you know, it’s, it’s really interesting, you’re talking with the people that are doing it. So your break, we weren’t out there feeding the fish and harvesting. But we’re right in the thick of everything that’s going on, we had to make sure that we were respectful of you know, harvesting dates and fallow periods and all that stuff.
So it’s a very, very hands-on and ever-changing industry. I think the biggest takeaway for me working in here is I didn’t know that we were going to have to spend so much time defending what we do. But I think a lot of people in the industry, in aquaculture, but also on the fishery side are very proud of the seafood industry as a whole.
And what we found is this whole fishery, wild-caught versus aquaculture thing is really something that happened outside the industry. You know, we see a lot of people from both sides. Just saying like, that doesn’t mean anything. We just need people to eat more seafood. And so that became the basis for our podcast academia is we advocate for eating more seafood, whether it’s farm-raised or wild-caught, we just want it to be responsibly sourced. And we just want more seafood on plates. I kind of went off in a different direction from your question.
Lourdes Gant 09:38
No, but that’s good, though. I can totally relate to what you just said about defending what you’re doing to people because when I started in this industry, I didn’t realize that myself I guess aquaculture in it’s still a baby or it’s an infancy stage, and most of the negative connotation came from bad practices and so just for the sake of everybody BAP stands for best aquaculture practice, I don’t even think that a lot of people know that we have this body or in we actually have best practices.
And I mentioned, I didn’t know this about in the industry, because the company that is our family business that I joined 13 years ago, is integrated aquaculture. And no one knows how actually we do things. So at the start, when I first came on board, that was the very first project I had was actually educate people about what we do.
And most of the materials that are online, are either I know you’re in the United States, so the United States is a little bit more advanced. And here we are in Canada, and everything they found online was not what we were doing. And it was more damage than good because the information that they’re getting is not as accurate. They’re more educated now. So that’s how we started actually doing hatchery tours, and then get them to familiarize themselves with how we were doing things.
So totally agree with what you’re saying in terms of what we have to defend, actually, with what we’re doing. Because there is a lot of misinformation about the industry.
Shaun O’Loughlin 11:07
We found for the globe, you know, the global aquaculture alliance is there to be an advocate for the industry and to help spread the word and preach the good, real information that is accurate that people don’t know. And we found that this lack of education, which hasn’t really negative sound to it, lack of education, but it’s really just, it’s not out there. It’s one of the biggest challenges that we have in the industry. And something that we’re really trying to chip away at little by little every year is just getting the information to the people that want to hear it and the people that are buying the fish, they just need to learn a little bit more. Yeah. And that’s, you know, that’s a big challenge.
Lourdes Gant 11:46
I really love what the global aquaculture alliance is doing. And so if everybody just goes their website is a gazillion of really good information in that website that you guys are doing a great job at. So thank you for putting it out there. Because just I think if someone is spent even 15 minutes every day educating themselves, what the industry is about, it will be almost like a master at the end of the year.
Shaun O’Loughlin 12:13
Well, we have some pretty influential figures that have helped build and create the global aquaculture alliance. Some of the people in our leadership teams are very influential in the industry, which is really helpful with our mission.
Lourdes Gant 12:28
I agree. I totally agree. In fact, I actually met one of the guests that I had, who is Larsen Mettler from STG because he was one of your panelists from one of your events. So nice. Yeah, it was really good. Yeah. Cool. All right. So my last question is, what do you see as the maybe top three trends in the aquaculture industry in the next 10 years?
Shaun O’Loughlin 12:51
Well, I think the biggest topics that are going to be ever-present, traceability is going to be a really big one, especially as this green wave or blue wave, whatever you want to call it, these kinds of greenwashing, you know, things that come through, the way to push that forward and add some reliability to the sustainability work that we’re all talking about is going to be through traceability. So I think that has been a large topic for years. And it’s I think it’s just going to continue to be more topic.
And that’s going to tie in with technology. You know, the aquaculture industry is very, very good about innovation, and trying new ideas, and coming up with solutions. There are other industries where they stick with, oh, this is what works, why would we fix it, but because we’re always trying to improve ourselves and improve the practices that we have to get better output to create better products and have better sustainability, technology and innovation is just gonna skyrocket over the next few years.
We’ve spoken with a couple of guests on our show that has these wild ideas that are working, and you know, they’re implementing all these new technologies, like nanobubble technology is now going to be being used more. We spoke with someone about the in-water electric stunner for humane slaughter and harvest and all this stuff. Just this really cool technology and innovation that’s really just growing at a rapid pace.
I think we’re gonna see a lot more philanthropy kind of happening in the industry as well. I think people are starting to recognize how important this is. And when we have things like documentaries that make it really hard for us to get to the consumer, to have people that have the ability to invest in aquaculture, and seafood as a whole.
But in sustainable and responsible aquaculture. I think we’re gonna see a lot more of that through things like green funding and stuff like that some of the larger banks are starting to get a little bit more interested in funding some of these bigger projects. So I think those are the three I think we’re gonna see more investment, a whole lot more innovation, and I think we’re gonna see some real crackdowns on traceability to weed out the bad apples.
Lourdes Gant 15:08
Sounds good. And I’m just gonna add just the elephant in the room. And so I saw your reply, guys, on the documentary on C-spiricy. And I’ve been asked that question quite a bit in recent weeks. And it’s quite sad, actually, that there are some people that have their own agenda in terms of propaganda, but I sure hope that in the next documentary after conspiracy and C-spirits, there will be plant spirits.
Shaun O’Loughlin 15:37
So then what are we gonna do? We’ll just eat mushrooms like? Oh, yeah, go ahead.
Lourdes Gant 15:44
One of the things that my husband always used to say was, it doesn’t mean that if you eat a carrot, the carrot doesn’t have a feeling.
Shaun O’Loughlin 15:53
Yeah, I have my own opinions on C-spiricy. I haven’t watched it all through, I didn’t make it through the whole thing without turning it off. But, you know, I have my own opinions. But I don’t want to speak to it on here, because anything that I say is going to be representing GA. And so I want to make sure that I’m kind of careful about that.
Lourdes Gant 16:10
I would be excited about his next episode. That’s all I’m gonna say about it. But thank you so much, Shawn, for being here. The biggest takeaway I have from this conversation is, I love the way how you talk about educating the public because that’s one of the things I think that’s having a lot of energy from the business. agriculturist is defending what we do because it is our livelihood. It is our source of income.
And so without having people understand what we’re doing, it does erode their relationship when people don’t understand what we do. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah, thank you for being here. And so for our next episode I was talking about, I’ll have Larson Mettler of STG ventures, who will share with us the latest trends in the agriculture technology, as you mentioned, and they’re working on which one is going to be the next boom in terms of agriculture technology under the umbrella or green tech, which are making the waves in the other fortex that’s coming on board, such as education, technology, medical technology, and finance technology. So thank you again, Shawn. And I look forward to our next conversation.
Shaun O’Loughlin 17:20
Great. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it had a great time.
Lourdes Gant 17:29
Thank you for listening, and I hope you are inspired by this episode. You take a moment and share this with your friends and colleagues and rate and review the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. I’d love to know what your biggest takeaway from this conversation has been? What are you going to do differently? Please share your thoughts across social media and tag us for links and Show Notes for this episode, visit our website, www.sustainableaquaculture.ca/podcast. Thank you again. I hope you will join me on the next episode and together we can help create a better business in aquaculture
