Blue Sea Labs, which uses e-commerce and software to shorten the seafood supply chain and provide transparency, has won first place and $40,000 in the Fish 2.0 Finals, a business competition intended to connect fishing and aquaculture businesses and investors that want to support sustainable seafood companies.
Blue Sea Labs’ (pictured) business enables direct transactions and distribution, which the company says provides higher quality product to customers while enabling fishermen to catch less and earn more.
Cryoocyte, which is developing technology to cryopreserve fish eggs, took home second place and a $25,000 prize. Egg freezing will enable fish farms globally to become less spawning-dependent and produce year-round at full capacity, the firm says.
Hooulu Pacific won third place and $10,000. The company integrates aquaponic technology with distributed agriculture to manage a network of households to commercially grow fish and vegetables in Waimanalo, Hawaii.
Smartfish and Inland Shrimp Company tied for the semifinalist prize. SmartFish is a social enterprise that incentivizes sustainability in artisanal fisheries of northwest Mexico by partnering exclusively with progressive fishermen’s cooperatives. Inland Shrimp Company is a concept for an indoor shrimp farm that will use patented technology and a proprietary feed formula to naturally raise and sell saltwater shrimp year-round.
In the Fish 2.0 Finals, 11 semi-finalists and 10 finalists chosen from more than 80 entries pitched their businesses to investors and judges. The semi-finalists each gave a 90-second pitch competing for a $2,500 fast pitch prize chosen by audience vote. The 10 finalists each gave a 10-minute presentation with additional question and answer time with the panel of five investor judges.
Earlier this year Albion Fisheries, Santa Monica Seafood, Seattle Fish Co. and other major seafood companies formed Sea Pact, an industry coalition to advance environmentally sustainable fisheries and aquaculture practices.
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