Singapore’s Akualogix makes the case for vertical urban shrimp farming
Akualogix plans to grow shrimp using water filtered firstly for ‘macro-nutrients’ by saltwater tilapia, and then through a bioreactor and seaweed to remove excess ammonia, nitrates and phosphorus from the system.
By Dan Gibson
Undercurrent News
Oct. 20, 2020
Excerpt:
While the notion of vertical aquaculture may seem counter-intuitive at first, it has certainly begun to take root in the city of Singapore, where space is at a premium and the demand for self-sufficiency has been laid out by the national government.
Into this arena has stepped Akualogix, led by John Diener, formerly chief operating officer at British insect feed firm AgriProtein and before that, managing director at Gold Coin Aqua Group.
“I think by necessity, Singapore is quite constrained in terms of land, so people have begun going in the direction of vertical farming,” Diener told Undercurrent News. “The Singapore food agency has this goal that Singapore should be self-sufficient for 30% of its total food requirements by 2030 — 30 by 30, they call it. So there’s a lot of interest and support in local or urban food solutions.”
Like other land-based shrimp farmers, Diener is confident that if you can get a fresh shrimp harvested that very same day to market, it should be possible to command a premium price that frozen shrimp can’t achieve. This, in turn, means building the farm as close to market as physically possible, which in Singapore and similarly cramped urban centers means converting small warehouses into recirculating aquaculture systems.
This premium angle has only been buoyed by the coronavirus pandemic, which Diener believes has not only increased consumer interest in food security but made business models like Akualogix’s feasible.
“Five or 10 years ago, it wouldn’t have been possible to consider a business like Akualogix, because you didn’t have that last-mile distribution infrastructure to be able to deliver same-day harvested product direct to consumers,” Diener continued.
“But now, there’s been a supporting technology revolution around last-mile logistics, and over the next few years that’s going to go even further with drone deliveries and that sort of thing — so that will work to our favor as well.”
Using multi-tiered raceway systems, Akualogix plans to grow shrimp using water filtered firstly for ‘macro-nutrients’ by saltwater tilapia, and then through a bioreactor and seaweed to remove excess ammonia, nitrates and phosphorus from the system. The filtered water is then recirculated back into the shrimp tank, Diener explains.
Alongside these tanks, the company is also developing its own monitoring systems to enable better water quality, feed efficiency, and system management.
Akualogix’s RAS design for urban fish and shrimp farming. Source: Akualogix website
“Right now, we’re still in proof of concept. So we’re operating a research system right now, and we’re testing the different components,” Diener said. “Then in the first half of next year, we’ll do construction on the demonstration facility.”
Due to the limited height of the ceiling at the facility, Akualogix’s proof-of-concept will only feature two levels; nevertheless, this will be sufficient to test all the components ahead of the construction of a commercial-scale facility in the second half of 2022, Diener said.
In the longer-term, although Akualogix has toyed with the idea of being an equipment supplier, the goal is to set up multiple vertical aquaculture farms for premium shrimp around Asia.
“What we realized is that if you look at the economics of this, there’s a lot more margin in producing the shrimp biomass than just selling the technology,” Diener continued. “And our model is more comprehensive than just the farm — it’s not just the hardware, it’s the software, it’s the feed, it’s everything, and it’s hard to commercialize that by just selling it to a third-party.”
Already, the firm has identified potential partners in Japan, China, the Middle East and Singapore itself, with the ambition to contribute the technology before operating joint ventures with local partners capable of contributing the necessary capital and floor space.
The company is also looking to sell both the head-on, gutted tilapia and umibudo — a variety of sea grapes — that will be produced alongside the shrimp.
“We’re looking at various models for commercializing that [seaweed] biomass for human consumption, and then the other part we can process into its various components,” Diener explained. “There’s a fair amount of protein in there, there’s some oil in there, then there’s a few micronutrients and polyphenols that are in the algae biomass that we’re also interested in.”
“So we’re working on an extraction process with our seaweed, and some of the ingredients from that process would go right back into our feed; we’re hoping to have a bit of a circular model there.”
Diener’s firm is far from the only company in Singapore developing a vertical seafood farm for urban areas — two other firms, Apollo Aquaculture Group and Universal Aquaculture have already begun work on their own proof-of-concept vertical indoor farms.
Apollo is focused on producing finfish using mechanical filtration techniques at its eight-story farm, while Universal is developing a multi-trophic system for tilapia and vannamei similar to that being created by Akualogix.
Akualogix itself is making use of Singapore’s marine aquaculture center, located on St. John’s Island, south of the main island of Singapore.
“They’re being quite deliberate about turning Singapore into an advanced aquaculture technology development center,” Diener told Undercurrent. “For example here at the marine aquaculture center, they’ve just commissioned a small extrusion feed mill. And that’s great for us because we can produce our own feed just 50 meters away.”
“And then there’s the national marine laboratory, which is adjacent as well. There’s a biosecurity level two facility there for doing disease challenge trials, as well as a whole cybernetics lab. So there’s a lot of great equipment there that we wouldn’t necessarily be able to afford or justify otherwise.”
