SPEAKERS
Lourdes Gant. Matt Craze
Lourdes Gant 0:05
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 this episode. 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 Nations 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.
Lourdes Gant 1:26
I’m Laura scant your host, aquaculture and seafood advocate How do you share your expertise in the industry in your niche? This episode is dedicated to answering that question. So listen in and I hope you enjoy this episode. If you listen to Episode One, we talked about the top trends in agriculture. In Episode Two, I summarize the top 10 challenges agriculture businesses face in growing their businesses, or the emergence of insights from our special guest from season one. In Episode Three, we have the president and CEO of the Canadian agriculture industry Alliance who talked about what government rules are blocking the development of agriculture. And how can companies help the changes? What will the sector look like in 10 years? And what will stay the same? for this episode I have with me, Mr. Matt Craig, welcome to the show, Matt. Hi, thank you. Welcome to Episode Four, season two of the business of agriculture. Matt craze who is a global seafood industry expert and founder of spheric research that publishes multiclient studies on global seafood and industry is very carried consultancy work in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, mostly involving expert interview driven studies. Welcome again to the show, man. I’m so excited about the studies that you did. So I can’t help myself with all this excitement, I’m having a little bit of trouble with my pronunciation and my accent. As you say, I’m really thankful for the time you’re giving me today considering I first saw you via I think one of the events that are organized by the global agriculture industry Alliance and then through. So thank you again for being here. It’s very humbling to host the show and get a yes when I invite special individuals to be on this new podcast considering I know how busy you guys are in this industry. So thank you again. Guys, let’s get started. So my first question is tell us about land-based farming? Oh, gosh, yeah. Okay. I think the topic.
Matt Craze 3:41
Yes, land-based farming. It’s been around for three decades or four decades. As part of the existing production systems. You look at most species look at salmon. It forms the same technology is used in the juvenile rearing stages of agriculture, and increasingly more so replacing in salmon older phasing out flow-through systems. For a long time, entrepreneurs have tried to master or decode the secrets of growing fish to harvest fleets on land. There’s been a lot of failures. Within the last few years, some finances have gotten behind some pretty big projects, of which a salmon project Atlantic Sapphire is the front runner. And that project is now in operation. And so I would call 2020 and 2019 a year of kind of euphoria, in terms of money going into the land-based sector. I would describe or some actually somebody described on a call today 2021 as being a hypersensitivity to bad news coming from some of the leading projects, and that’s sort of where we are right now. The technology continues to advance. There was an industry conference today, and there were people talking about the nuts and bolts of mechanics, and how those are improving gradually, but the investor sentiment has kind of pulled back. That’s sort of where we are right now.
Lourdes Gant 5:18
Very cool. I’m really just excited about you with all this research. And I guess interviews that you’ve done because you told me a while ago that there’s a publication coming out of the first database of all commercial projects of all species globally, which I’m really, really looking forward do.
Matt Craze 5:37
Yes, yeah, no, that’s right. We did it with the current use last year, but we just did salmon species, we counted the number of projects. In actual fact, my colleague, and I were at the latter stages of this project now. So we’ve counted shrimp rush shrimp, we were quite surprised that she those dozens of projects out there, but the project economics seems to be key with brass shrimp, other species that quite a few. That’s the new study. And the salmon list, we just added the numbers up today, I was expecting there to be a lot more new projects. Actually, we found there weren’t that many new projects, again, that might speak of the slowdown in interest as well, from the money side, I’m not talking about everything else.
Lourdes Gant 6:27
Right? Well, I look forward to seeing more on this shellfish side of things, because that’s the species that we call the vein because I found that when I first came into this, as you know, where I came from, in the industry, is from a family base. And so actually brought into place a process map because a lot of the projects and experiments that were done in the past were not documented. So I started from scratch or and I have to really find all these studies that have already been done. And luckily, I’m able to retrieve some of the experiments that were done for like from the 90s. And interestingly, just documenting them all now in our process mapping. But my second question to you is, what are some of the challenges that you’ve seen in the recirculation, aquaculture system or rash,
Matt Craze 7:13
the main challenges we see are associated with water quality. And a lot of the problems seem to stem from biofilters. And when you put saltwater in a Ras system when that any area of the water becomes anaerobic, you can get a buildup of gas, heat, and that can poison the fish within hours. That’s one of the main challenges. But there are other little parts as well, there’s generally, for that same reason, a lot of these companies have struggled to reach the level of density where the project economics make sense. But there’s really a number of challenges to overcome. A lot of them again, going a little bit back to a panel, I just heard an industry event today, there’s really a lack of human expertise around the world, there seems to be a lot more knowledge in Norway right now, because they’ve Commission’s dozens of post smoke facilities in the last 10 years, as somebody said, from akva group today, there’s a lot of university courses, a lot of training. And if you look at again, if you look at Atlantic Sapphire, I don’t want to talk too much about their results and single out one company. But that’s one of the challenges that they faced, I think as well. It’s super interesting, just on that subject as well, how mantic Sapphire talked about the traditional engineering model for the systems. And they’ve actually, for their phase two expansion. They’re looking at a wastewater treatment company to lead the project design. This is something that I discussed as well with Johanne Andreassen, on my same podcast that I do with undercurrent news, that the wastewater treatment days have a lot of technology that could be very beneficial to the Russ world.
Lourdes Gant 9:15
Thank you for sharing that. It’s fascinating that you mentioned all of these challenges because this was part of Episode Two, wherein our talk and lack of industry expertise was one of the big one because we’re seeing that as well, in our business. We, especially after COVID a lot of people, not only we don’t have the industry experts that are now going to be I guess substituting all of the people who are from Generation X and Y for that matter, but do you think that part of the lack of expertise is because most of the younger people are more interested into technology?
Matt Craze 9:53
I guess so. When I speak to agriculture, executives around the world there’s definitely a problem with attracting the sector because not everybody wants to live in the middle of nowhere where fish may be raised. I see find some of these places really charming when you go to, you know, the middle of Vietnam, and they’re on a beautiful beach, I sort of feel like I could do that. I have the skills, but because there are no industrial-scale facilities, nobody’s actually operated the button right. So a lot of these people are coming from r&d centers or small ventures that failed. A lot of them are coming from the conventional salmon farming industry. So if you see in some of these really big, like brass projects, the Chief Science people are actually managers of hatcheries from southern Chile, where I’m sat right now. And there’s been a sort of exports of talent too, you know, run these huge facilities. But again, their experience is growing smolts up to 200 grands. Best case scenario 500 grads, and now they’re going to take it to the 4.55 kilo harvests life with all of the risks in tailed in that growth period. So that will be a learning curve for that as well.
Lourdes Gant 11:17
Yeah, that’s amazing that you mentioned that. But I’d also like to bring into the discussion that now that actually the industry is embracing technology as well, we need these younger person because they’re the ones who are cable ready. One of the challenges that you mentioned is just knowing the density that’s appropriate. I mean, if they can do like sensitivity analysis, on a robotics side of things, we’re in Oh, if they have this number of animals, it produces more survival rate compared to this other thing on a simulator and simulation, and gamification, that will be wonderful, wouldn’t it?
Matt Craze 11:53
Right? No, absolutely. And if you think as well that these rust systems are capable of generating big data, you can measure your parameters. But actually, the interpretation of that data is still at a fairly nascent stage. So these young operators will grow up with that new system and will be fluent in it. Whereas previous generations won’t, they will be more of that generation that relied on visual cues, looking at the fish, or they’re hungry, you know, that type of thing. So these are the new generation will just totally run with the new tools.
Lourdes Gant 12:35
It’s exciting times, that’s for sure. I know that you’re also going to have an upcoming webinar with undercurrent use, which is the world’s small screen, seafood industry media platform. Can you let our audience know when that’s going to be in? What’s that? Yeah, I’m excited about it.
Unknown Speaker 12:51
Absolutely. So actually, it’s a really nice webinar. I’m very happy to put this one together. It’s September 23. So it’s next week. And we’ve got a great panel talking about pretty much the same topic we’re talking about. We’ve got Eric Fidesz, of new traco new frontiers. He’s the investment director of the new track that goes venture capital arm, then we have Maggie freed of the creo syndicate. It’s an advisory firm, to the family offices of North America. So those guys, if you think about the fact that Ross needs fairly deep pockets, if we’re going to build solid projects, some of those investors might be best suited to that type of technology, and the creo syndicate is an ESG orientated organization impact investments. And then we also have Eric time of Nordic capital funds developing one of the major projects in North America. So that would be a really interesting conversation, I think,
Lourdes Gant 13:57
Oh, that sounds exciting. All the big names and all these opportunities coming on board, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah. Well, my last question for you is what’s one thing you think will still be here and will not change in the next 10 years?
Matt Craze 14:14
Yeah, I think it’s all the people that are around me. I’m in a part of the virus, Chile. This is where all of the big salmon companies are. I think all those guys are still going to be around in 10 years because anything that comes from Ross and even offshore, like Rabobank did a big offshore study today. Definitely. That sector is interesting as well. But these companies the traditional coastal salmon farming companies will absolutely still be around. Now whether they sell the salmon from birth Amman by trucking it 1000 kilometers to Santiago to then put on the overnight flights to Miami, then go on trucks I’m not sure if that model will stand the test of time, especially as you’ve got all of these new freezing technologies, you’ve got ways that you could get the product to the market, potentially with a lower carbon footprint. But I would imagine those guys will still be very strong, they might have solved some of the issues that they deal with elder disease management, sea lice, they may have found the answers to some of those questions that may even change the project economics of brass, and offshore. So I would predict those companies will be absolutely part of the supply chain still.
Lourdes Gant 15:41
Well, thank you for sharing that I wanted to address right off the bat because we probably have listeners worrying a lot of the people who are into the environmental impact discussions talking about salmon being bad. And then of course, there’s the other tribe we’re in this has been a family living for quite some time, and fish is going to stay as long as there are also other people who are taking care of this properly. And so there are two camps.
Matt Craze 16:12
Yes, yes, that definitely is, and that there are legitimate concerns that have to be addressed, obviously, with the environments, and these industries impact on the environment. But what it does do is it transforms these areas that so often don’t have jobs, great conversations with Randall from it of the World Bank, who was also on another webinar, I organize recently. And it just has brandy says agriculture has this amazing ability to create jobs in often in coastal communities where there is high unemployment. So that part of it should be up Hold it as a very positive aspect of agriculture.
Lourdes Gant 16:56
Thank you. And you know, we welcome you here in Canada, because we need a lot more data compared to how we’re doing things right now. So come on over a year. Yeah, you’re invited?
Matt Craze 17:09
No, no, thank you. Yes. I’m quite familiar with different parts of the Canadian seafood industry. I’m working on a project right now. But also, I’m following the elections. super interesting, right? Because it seemed like the snap election called by Justin Trudeau was a sure thing. And it now it’s not. And that may give the salmon farming industry, a different platform, at least on the west side, right? to perhaps have a new dialogue. And, yeah, who knows?
Lourdes Gant 17:41
Yes, it will be fascinating. And one thing I learned really well when I was still in school is we’re not going to be talking about two topics, religion and politics. But my biggest takeaway from today’s call was when you were talking about, you know, how 2019 and 2020 being that euphoria years into the land base, sir, and that now 2021, there’s this hypersensitivity that are going on that brings a lot more awareness to people and people who are going to be listening to this podcast, maybe think how that affects your own industry if you’re not in the aquaculture industry? And if you are, how did you actually rode that euphoria from the pandemic last year and the year before that, and how we can ride even I use that same word for the hypersensitivity, and so you can make some adjustments into what you’re doing in your business. So thanks again, Matt, for being here. Any last words? How can they get in touch with you?
Matt Craze 18:45
Oh, yeah, sure. No, I was just gonna say on your last point, a lot of the industry predicted that this would happen. You know, you have the excitement about new projects. And this is like, this is a crazy thing. It’s been at the start of an industry. When you went for these first projects. You know, many people predicted that there would be a bumpy start. And of course, we can see the bumps out. And so everyone’s sort of retrenched investors, but that doesn’t mean the technology has retrenched. It’s like the to go to the gates S curve or all these different models where you have a period of disillusionment. I think that’s a little bit what’s happening right now. Yeah, no, I’m a consultant with seafood. I do have a lot of data on the novel innovations, old proteins, as well as something up my street, so to speak, you can contact spheric research, Matt at spirit research comm if anybody wants to just get in touch.
Lourdes Gant 19:40
Thank you again, Matt. And I can’t wait to visit you in Chile as well. My network there.
Matt Craze 19:45
Oh, yeah, absolutely. You’re most welcome. Yeah, it’s a beautiful part of the world said early spring and it’s full of lakes and fjords, and it’s a nice part of the world.
Lourdes Gant 19:56
Can’t wait to visit once our border opens. Thanks, again Matt to our subscribers do leave a review of the podcast so we can get more people to be aware of the value our guests are providing in these conversations. If you’re new to the podcast, I’d like to hear from you. So contact me, our website sustainable aquaculture.ca Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Matt, and I’ll talk to you again soon. Bye for now. Bye, guys. Bye. Thank you for listening, and I hope you are inspired by this episode. Do 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 duck sustainable aquaculture.ca slash 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
