Aquanzo's high-tech approach to farming marine ingredients on land

Aquanzo, an Edinburgh-based startup developing land-based aquaculture of brine shrimp as a sustainable marine ingredient, has announced it is developing its farming technology in collaboration with CENSIS, Scotland's innovation centre for sensing, imaging, and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies.

Founded by Remi Gratacap and Stefanie Lobnig, Aquanzo is developing a RAS-based modular system to farm artemia, a species of brine shrimp which is an excellent source of protein for use in aquaculture feed - but which is limited in supply.

Wild artemia thrive in the warm saline waters of salt lakes across the USA, China, and Eurasia. However, the Aquanzo team point out, the requirements of this unique habitat severely limit the availability of wild brine shrimp, especially for distant countries reliant on imports - a situation compounded by global events which disrupt supply chains.

In aquaculture, where artemia are used as an ingredient for feed, the supply of marine ingredients is a pressing issue. Aquanzo points out that currently, the global average of marine ingredients in fish feed is below 10%, a stark reduction from 70% three decades ago.

"It is well known there is a crisis in fishmeal ingredients and we need to decouple aquaculture from maxed-out fisheries and find new ways of providing sustainable sources of protein to help the sector feed a growing world population," Gratacap said.

"Farming, rather than harvesting, important components of feed like artemia is a better way of ensuring greater control and scale, and is similar to what is already being done with insect farms, only with marine ingredients," he added.

To solve this, Aquanzo is developing a modular, recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) to cultivate artemia onsite, utilizing agricultural by-products, notably from whisky malt production in Scotland.

The nutrient-rich wastewater from malt processing, abundant in minerals and organic content, provides an ideal medium for growing brine shrimp.

Aquanzo's innovative approach situates the RAS adjacent to agricultural processors, avoiding impact on marine ecosystems. Aquanzo's farming system is projected to lower CO2 emissions by 20% compared to conventional fishmeal production, with all water being recycled to maximize environmental benefits, Gratacap explained.

"The system we’re developing will give fish farmers long-term access to a sustainable source of marine protein, helping to continue aquaculture’s growth, enhance the health of their fish, make use of another industry’s waste, and support aquaculture’s net-zero goals," he said.

As part of the process and technical development, Aquanzo is collaborating with engineers from CENSIS to develop an IoT-enabled array of sensors and a "data lake" – essentially a centralised repository for data – to help its production team collect, store, and process data.

The technology is intended to boost the team's development of a fully mobile RAS, which can be located wherever agricultural by-products are available, as well as enabling remote monitoring of the welfare and growth of artemia.

“The Aquanzo system could help solve one of the biggest challenges aquaculture faces – applying cutting-edge technology to a longstanding problem," said Corinne Critchlow-Watton, project manager at CENSIS.

"The system will use an array of sensors to provide data on the environmental conditions within it and how the artemia are growing, such as water temperature and pH levels This project demonstrates how IoT and sensing technology can be used in a range of sectors to help solve what might have otherwise been considered a biological issue," she said.

The start-up has received funding from Innovate UK and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and is also beingsupported by Boortmalt, one of the world’s largest malting companies.