Oceanium: Biorefining UK seaweed to produce sustainable functional protein products

在英国和欧洲，海藻正受到前所未有的关注，因为它们拥有广阔、营养丰富的海岸线，在生物技术创新、海洋科学和水产养殖方面拥有世界领先的专业知识。海藻产量很高，不竞争土地资源，也不消耗淡水、化肥或杀虫剂。海带提取物提供了一种有吸引力的替代食物来源，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2019年的1450吨/年加速到2030年的800多万吨/年，创造11.5万个就业岗位，并将欧洲海藻产业规模扩大到80亿英镑/年。Oceanium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“建造-拥有-运营”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、高价值营养药品和生物包装材料，从可持续养殖的海藻中提取最大价值。作为欧洲海藻协会的创始成员和安全海藻联盟的积极成员，我们正在引领英国、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%。我们根据6项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。去年，我们的团队从8人增加到17人，目前正在招聘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性蛋白质，并探索一种新的补充生物精炼原料——废海莴苣的潜力。海莴苣的蛋白质含量比海带高，高达33%（干重），而海带的蛋白质含量高达20%。在气候变化和沿海富营养化的推动下，海莴苣在英国海岸线上大量繁殖，人们越来越关注这一问题。藻华既难看又臭，还很危险，影响了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（包括泽西岛、普尔、托贝和萨尼特）付费收集海莴苣，通过土地扩张、堆肥、填埋或倾倒在海上处理。海莴苣通常污染太严重，无法在农田上传播，而堆肥、垃圾填埋和海洋倾倒都很昂贵。通过从海莴苣中提取蛋白质，Oceanium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.