Freo-based biotech company SeaStock has taken out the Louis Dreyfus Corporation Climate Resilience Prize in Switzerland.
SeaStock was one of more than 1,200 startups from across the globe selected to take part in this year’s Mass Challenge accelerator program located in Lausanne, which commenced in May this year and the only Australian company to be selected as a finalist.
The startup was recognised for its technology-based approach to assist the agriculture industry in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.
Mass Challenge President, Ian Roberts, said that SeaStock was named as LDC Climate Resilience Prize Laureate because of its potential to deliver rapid impact by cutting emissions from the world’s dairy and beef herds.
“SeaStock provides a solution that can plug into the existing supply chain, thus scale fast to cut emissions in the short and medium term. They create a meaningful impact as we speed up global transition to a future where alternative proteins take a much bigger share of our diet.”
Mass Challenge President, Ian Roberts
On announcing SeaStock as the winner, Mr Roberts said the world needed to move faster to rebalance the protein intake across animal and plant sources to reduce the stress on land and water resources globally.
“SeaStock provides a solution that can plug into the existing supply chain, thus scale fast to cut emissions in the short and medium term.”
SeaStock Managing Director Tom Puddy, who travelled to Switzerland to accept the award with board member Greg Harvey, described the win as an incredible achievement for a WA-based biotech startup and recognition of the very real commercial potential of the company’s patented land-based cultivation and extraction technology in relation to the native seaweed Asparagopsis.
“Winning the LDC Climate Resilience Award is global recognition and validation that our innovative approach to seaweed cultivation and processing is commercially scalable and can have a direct impact on reducing methane emissions from livestock.
“I am incredibly proud of our team and the industry partners that we have worked closely with to achieve this sort of recognition and following a very rigorous selection process that saw us make multiple trips to Europe to take part in a matter of months.
“I think the key take out for us here is that we have been judged by some of Europe’s largest commercial corporations with significant global footprints that are looking for immediate solutions to reducing the impact of their supply chains,” Tom said.
LDC Chief Executive Officer, Michael Gelchie, said he was honoured to present the Climate Prize to SeaStock “whose impressive solution to produce and extract compounds derived from seaweed and algae shows great potential to drive climate resilience across several value chains and industries.”
“What we now need to capitalize on this level of global recognition is support and investment to scale commercially and to do so in a fairly rapid time frame.
“We need the support of governments to do this and to help primary producers to incorporate cost effective, proven and sustainable solutions it into their operations,” Tom said.
“We’ve shown at our Fremantle based hatchery and pilot plant that we can produce and extract commercially valuable products from seaweed grown in a controlled environment and that we can do so sustainably using renewable energy sources, cost effectively with high purity and high concentration while retaining a natural ingredient status.
“The interest in our industry is growing exponentially year on year and we are at the forefront in terms of the science behind cultivating and extracting high value compounds from seaweed and commercializing the supply of those products to end users globally.”
Mass Challenge Switzerland partners Buhler Group, Givaudan, Nestle, DSM, Louis Dreyfus Company and Sudzucker promote the challenge with the aim of identifying startups or scaleups with proven solutions or technology in the areas of sustainable food and feeding solutions, sustainable supply chain and manufacturing, sustainable packaging and Agri Tech.
Shortlisted companies are given a direct pathway to multi-national corporations to explore ways to collaborate with them and to assist them to scale their technology.
SeaStock is further developing value added natural extracts from the Asparagopsis seaweed that significantly reduces methane emissions from the livestock industry, plus natural extracts that benefit food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.
SeaStock also received a Gold award, presented by Buhler CEO Stefan Scheiber.
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