Oceanium: Biorefining UK seaweed to produce sustainable functional protein products

海藻在英国和欧洲正受到前所未有的关注，它们拥有广阔的、营养丰富的海岸线，以及在生物技术创新、海洋科学和水产养殖方面世界领先的专业知识。海藻产量很高，不会争夺土地资源，也不会消耗淡水、化肥或杀虫剂。海带提取物提供了一种诱人的替代食物来源，包括蛋白质、纤维、矿物质、维生素和生物活性化合物。新兴的欧洲可持续养殖海藻产业有潜力从1450吨/年(2019年)加速到2030年超过800万吨/年，创造11.5万个就业机会，并将欧洲海藻产业的规模扩大到80亿GB/年。Ocean是一家由女性领导的初创企业，其愿景是成为世界上最大的可持续养殖海藻加工商，在英国、欧洲和北美建立自己运营的海藻生物精炼厂。我们开发了一种创新的海藻生物精炼工艺，通过共同提取食品成分、高价值营养食品和生物包装材料，从可持续养殖的海带中提取最大价值。作为欧洲海藻组织的创始成员和安全海藻联盟的活跃成员，我们领导着英国、欧洲和北美可持续养殖海藻产业的发展。2022年，我们将从英国、爱尔兰、法国、挪威和法罗群岛购买约140吨可持续养殖的海藻，占欧洲可持续养殖海藻供应量的10%。我们对照6个联合国可持续发展目标衡量我们的影响。我们的投资者包括世界野生动物基金会(WWF)、绿色天使辛迪加和翠鸟资本。在过去的一年里，我们的团队从8人增加到17人，目前正在招聘另外2个职位。在Innovate UK的资助下，我们将调整我们的生物精炼工艺，从海带中提取高纯度的功能蛋白，并探索一种新的辅助性生物精炼原料--废生菜的潜力。海生菜的蛋白质含量比海带高，高达33%(干重)，而海带则高达20%。在气候变化和沿海富营养化的推动下，英国海岸线上出现了海生花，这是一个日益令人担忧的问题。水华难看、难闻、危险，会影响当地的生物多样性和旅游业，甚至迫使海滩关闭。多个沿海地方当局(包括泽西、普尔、托贝和萨内特)付费收集海生，通过土地铺展、堆肥、垃圾填埋或海上倾倒来处置。海生菜通常被污染得太严重，无法在农田中传播，而堆肥、填埋和海上倾倒成本高昂。通过从生菜中提取蛋白质，大洋洲将把废物转化为价值，保护我们的海岸线，满足对下一代替代蛋白质的需求。

Seaweed is receiving unprecedented levels of interest in the UK and Europe, with extensive, nutrient-rich coastlines and world-leading expertise in biotechnology innovation, marine science, and aquaculture. Seaweed is highly productive and does not compete for land resources or consume freshwater, fertilisers, or pesticides. Kelp extracts offer an attractive alternative food source, comprising protein, fibre, minerals, vitamins, and bioactive compounds.The nascent European sustainably farmed seaweed industry has potential to accelerate from 1,450 tonnes/year (2019) to over 8 million tonnes/year by 2030, creating 115,000 jobs and scaling the European seaweed industry to £8.0billion/year.Oceanium is a female-led start-up with a vision to become the world's largest processor of sustainably farmed seaweed, establishing Build-Own-Operate seaweed biorefineries in the UK, Europe, and North America. We have developed an innovative seaweed biorefinery process, which extracts maximum value from sustainably farmed kelp by co-extracting food ingredients, high-value nutraceuticals, and biopackaging materials.We are leading the development of UK, European, and North American sustainably farmed seaweed industries, as founding members of Seaweed for Europe and active members of the Safe Seaweed Coalition. In 2022, we will purchase around 140 tonnes of sustainably farmed seaweed from the UK, Ireland, France, Norway, and Faroe Islands, representing c10% of European sustainably farmed seaweed supply. We measure our impact against 6 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Our investors include the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Green Angel Syndicate, and Kingfisher Capital. In the last year, we have grown our team from 8 to 17 people and are currently recruiting for 2 more positions.With Innovate UK funding, we will adapt our biorefinery process to extract high-purity functional proteins from kelp and explore the potential of a new, supplementary biorefinery feedstock, waste sea lettuce. Sea lettuce has higher protein content than kelp, up to 33% (dry weight) compared to up to 20%. Sea lettuce blooms appear across the UK coastline and are a growing concern, driven by climate change and coastal eutrophication. Blooms are unsightly, smelly, and hazardous, impacting local biodiversity and the tourist trade, even forcing beach closures. Multiple coastal local authorities (including Jersey, Poole, Torbay, and Thanet) pay to collect sea lettuce for disposal via land-spreading, composting, landfill, or dumping at sea. Sea lettuce is often too contaminated to spread on farmland, while composting, landfill, and sea-dumping are expensive. By extracting protein from sea lettuce, Oceanium will transform waste into value, protecting our coastline and meeting demand for next-generation alternative proteins.