Aquaculture investor is seafood awards finalist

Netherlands-based Aqua-Spark, which focuses on sustainable aquaculture businesses around the world, is one of five finalists in the Seafood Champion Award for Vision category, which recognises distinctive visions that significantly advance the sustainable seafood community.

Aqua-Spark invests sums of $250,000 upwards small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) involved in sustainable aquaculture, taking minority holdings of between 20-49%.

Salmon cages

Its current portfolio of businesses includes Norwegian research spin-out CageEye, which uses echo sounding to gather data on fish positioning in salmon cages from installed transducers, enabling farmers to make informed decisions about the welfare of their fish while automating and optimising common chores like feeding.

The fund is also invested in Hatch, the accelerator programme which concentrates on developing aquaculture start-ups, Dutch insect farmer Protix, Icelandic Arctic char farmer Matorka and Norwegian halibut farmer Sogn Aqua.

Marks & Spencer

Another contender for a Seafood Champion award is Hannah Macintyre, aquaculture and fisheries manager for Marks & Spencer, who is one of four finalists in the Seafood Champion Award for Leadership category.

In 2018, under Macintyre’s leadership, M&S launched a platform to allow consumers to trace their products, affirming that 100% of the store chain’s seafood products are from sustainable sources.

The winner in each category will be announced at a ceremony on June 11 at the SeaWeb Seafood Summit in Bangkok, Thailand.

The awards are run by the SeaWeb sustainable seafood programme and media company Diversified Communications. SeaWeb is a project of The Ocean Foundation, a community foundation with a mission to support, strengthen and promote organisations dedicated to reversing the trend of destruction of ocean environments around the world.