🥓 Beth Zotter: Umaro seaweed bacon, billion dollar consumer products, and cultivation tech
PLUS: China-ASEAN seaweed cooperation forum opens and Antler back microalgae start-up.
“I remember we were pitching Vinod Khosla, one of the legends in Silicon Valley, and he said - you'll never be a billion dollar company if you don't have a branded consumer product.” — Beth Zotter, CEO at Umaro Foods.
Dear algae technologists, operators, and investors, welcome to another edition of the Paxtier Report!
This week, check out our recent interview with Beth Zotter, CEO and co-founder of Umaro Foods, the brilliant seaweed-based alternative bacon company.
Umaro recently won a $1,782,000 ARPA-E grant to evaluate the feasibility of extracting Rare Earth Elements (REEs) and Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) from macroalgae.
And in this episode of The Paxtier Pod, we explore Beth's exciting endeavours across the seaweed value chain, from scaling offshore farming & strain optimization, to selecting business models & target markets.
You can listen now on Spotify:
And YouTube:
Where to find Beth:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethzotter/
In this episode we cover:
0:00 Intro.
1:05 Introduction to Umaro.
4:45 Strain selection and optimisation.
7:07 Umaro's involvement in offshore cultivation tech.
18:14 Next steps for Umaro and fundraising.
21:39 Perspectives on U.S seaweed farming.
25:10 Perspectives on land-based farming and invasive species.
30:05 The biorefinery approach.
32:29 Competing with soy.
34:06 Biomass supply for Umaro.
37:24 Approaching sales as a scientist, and building a billion dollar brand.
38:51 The power of outsourcing to facilitate scaling.
43:33 Nailing the pitch and business model.
45:08 Big learnings and advice.
Hope you enjoy it!
In today’s report…
Markets: 💸 China-ASEAN seaweed cooperation forum opens in China's Xiamen.
Deals: 🌐 Antler back Arvid Seeberg-Elverfeldt and Berenike (Nixe) Zimmer’s microalgae company.
Movers and Shakers: 🥓 Beth Zotter: Umaro seaweed bacon, billion dollar consumer products, and cultivation tech.
Around the web: 🤝 Science stacks up for microalgae as feed additives; can cost obstacle be overcome?
Markets and Investing
✂️Algae Market Snippets
Some big moves in recent weeks…
General
🌿 Algine Plus has officially announced its expansion into the American market through a partnership with Walmart.com (Read more HERE).
Macroalgae
🌿 Orsted supports seaweed and mussel farming project (Read more HERE).
🔄 A novel chemical-free approach to treating aquaculture waste could see co-products returned to the sector to fuel the growth of ocean life such as marine worms and seaweed (Read more HERE).
🍺 Ebb Tides Seaweeds has won a gold award at the Food Drink Devon awards for its latest seaweed-based beer Ladram Bay Bitter (Read more HERE).
🥤 Pacific Northwest family creates biodegradable drinking straw (Read more HERE).
🥇 Scotiabank announces 2023 Net-Zero Research Fund winners (Read more HERE).
✍ NMB, Zanzibar ink deal on PPP financing (Read more HERE).
🤝 China-ASEAN seaweed cooperation forum opens in China's Xiamen (Read more HERE).
🐄 South African anti-methanogenic seaweed company Bahari Labs is raising money and testing its supplement (Read more HERE).
🌿 Jordà Food Group and The Seaweed Company join forces in seaweed product development (Read more HERE).
🌿 SA seafood industries eye expansion under new Eyre Peninsula aquaculture zone policy (Read more HERE).
🗻 Oban hosts seaweed summit (Read more HERE).
🏆 Thai Union announces Oceanium as Innovation Challenge winner (Read more HERE).
🌱 Acadian Plant Health™ unveils BioSwitch technology (Read more HERE).
👣 Introducing the first ever model specifically designed for ocean kelp carbon dioxide removal (CDR) (Read more HERE).
🌶️ 3 of Kove Ocean Foods’ signature seaweed spices are now available at Whole Foods Market in all BC locations (Read more HERE).
🧱 The Natural Polymers Group is officially launched by Notpla and co. (Read more HERE).
🌿 Turner Techtronics will invest in seaforestation by cultivating and restoring 25 hectares of sea forested kelp over the next three years (Read more HERE).
Microalgae
⛈️ Troubled waters? Chilean salmon farmers fear El Niños fury, and algae blooms (Read more HERE).
📈 Cyanotech reports financial results for the second quarter and first six months of fiscal 2024 (Read more HERE).
🤝 Algarithm Ingredients and De Wit Speciality Oils partner for European distribution (Read more HERE).
⚠️ Safety of a change in specifications of the novel food oleoresin from Haematococcus pluvialis containing astaxanthin pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2015/2283 (Read more HERE).
🟢 FEBICO actively seeking business partners in United States, introduces "High- Spermidine" chlorella health supplements to satisfy U.S. market (Read more HERE).
🤑 Ontario drops $1.3M into Lake Simcoe for phosphorous reduction (Read more HERE).
📈 Vinpai Announces sales growth of 23% (Read more HERE).
🍅 Belgian tomato grower now also cultivates algae (Read more HERE).
🟢 EcoEngineers develops a crediting methodology to quantify and verify carbon dioxide removals (CDR) for Brilliant Planet (Read more HERE).
💼 Simris appoints Reviate LLC as exclusive distributor (Read more HERE).
💸 Phycin gets $400K to commercialise algae proteins (Read more HERE).
🖨️ bioMATTERS introduces MYCO-ALGA, a sustainable interior tiling system crafted from 3D-printed mycelium and algae (Read more HERE).
🏆 Vegeta&Spirulina seasoning wins design ‘Oscar’ (Read more HERE).
🥇 AIRGAE mission to solve aquaculture’s dependence on fish oil through growing high fatty acid microalgae in 3D printed bioreactors has won the European 3D Printing Challenge (Read more HERE).
🤝 Antler back Arvid Seeberg-Elverfeldt and Berenike (Nixe) Zimmer on their mission to unleash the potential of microalgae in alternative food production (Read more HERE).
✒️ New Algae Ink offering at EcoEnclose (Read more HERE). And Living Ink has been awarded a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Small Business Innovation Grant (SBIR) - Phase II grant (Read more HERE).
🦐 I&V Bio, Skretting sign partnership to enhance the nutritional value of Artemia using ORI-N3 (Read more HERE).
⚖️Microphyt taps Phaeodactylum tricornutum for weight management (Read more HERE).
🐦Tweets of the week
🔥 What else was hot in algae this week?
Macroalgae
🌿 Seaweed: Untapped economic potential for Bangladesh (Read more HERE).
🧺 Spanish artisans repurpose macroalgae and seashells to weave bio-based baskets (Read more HERE).
🌊 (Paper) Air-sea carbon dioxide equilibrium: Will it be possible to use seaweeds for carbon removal offsets? (Read more HERE).
🧺 Converting waste from salmon, eel and other marine species into consumer and biomedical products has opened a new and lucrative path for Maine's seafood industry (Read more HERE).
🌊 Meet the Nova Scotians on the frontiers of farming kelp (Read more HERE).
🎥 CH4 Global CEO: ‘Cow burps are the single largest source of methane globally’ (Read more HERE).
🖼️ Off the wrack: the designer using seaweed to create art and high fashion (Read more HERE).
🛠️ How is the toolkit for methane emissions reduction in dairy and beef cows expanding (Read more HERE).
🌿 Playing favourites: How selective breeding can grow the seaweed sector (Read more HERE).
Microalgae
🟢 Algae-based manufacturing system uses CO2 to create eco-friendly plastic (Read more HERE).
🟢 Colonial green algae in the Cambrian plankton (Read more HERE).
🦠 Deep-sea pressure found to preserve food for microbes in the abyss (Read more HERE).
🧪 Science stacks up for microalgae as feed additives; can cost obstacle be overcome? (Read more HERE).
📝 (Paper) Biostimulation of green microalgae Chlorella sorokiniana using nanoparticles of MgO, Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2, and ZnO for increasing biodiesel production (Read more HERE).
🟢 Chinese scientists unravel cGNAT2 role in cyanobacteria (Read more HERE).
That’s all folks!
Thanks again for joining us this week. Hope you have a great day and stay tuned for more algae tech updates soon!
Best,
Peter