lichtfuss⁄.earth

SHRMP.bio

SHRMP.bio For nearly three years SHRMP.bio looked for the help a company like ours needs. Australia's agrifood leaders have now diagnosed why we couldn't find it. “We are still mainly crops and rocks; we don’t have a sophisticated food manufacturing sector.” One of the more than a hundred people consulted for a national report on Australian agrifood said that, and the report’s own numbers do not argue. Australia ranks seventy-fourth of a hundred and forty-five countries on Harvard’s Economic Complexity Index — down from sixty-first in… 19 October 2026
SHRMP.bio Two shrimp companies proved the market is real. Then production nearly killed them both. The first objection we always got in the beginning was: you have to be able to compete with (the cheap import) market prices. While one part of my argument was always, no, it is not today’s market prices I am worried about, it is tomorrow’s supply - this was generally rejected, I think either as arrogance or as science fiction. 16 October 2026
SHRMP.bio On three continents they are building on-shore shrimp farms. On three continents, the state is paying. If land-based shrimp were a business that stood on its own, you would expect to find it where the commercial logic is strongest. Instead, you find it where the state has decided it should exist — and once you notice that, you cannot stop noticing it. Germany — a country with no prawn tradition whatever, and yet home to two… 15 October 2026
SHRMP.bio The whole industry is quietly retreating to the layer SHRMP.bio started on Between late 2024 and 2025, the land-based shrimp sector saw several of the largest and best-funded companies in it fail, fold, or walk away from growing shrimp for people to eat or, at the bare minimum, their vision for it. Some of these are (or were) serious operations with real money and capable people, and most of them executed well… 14 October 2026
SHRMP.bio The work worth most in 2050 is the work no one wants to pay for in 2026. The near-term economics of land-based shrimp production are hardly commercially viable — if at all. Australia imports most of its seafood, cheap imports set the price, and nothing produced on land at pilot scale could compete on cost. But that was never the plan for SHRMP.bio. SHRMP.bio’s bet is on a different world, two decades out — one where climate,… 13 October 2026
SHRMP.bio Everyone is building a better shrimp box. We aim to build what every box needs. Almost everyone trying to grow shrimp on land is building a box. A better tank, a smarter container, a cleverer set of pipes and sensors. The competition is a race to own the best box. We looked at that race and decided not to enter it. “But your SHRMPreactor illustration is a box!” Correct. It’s an illustration. The opportunity in… 12 October 2026
SHRMP.bio In 2024 I built scenarios for 2050. Some of them are turning up early. And not precisely the way I expected. In 2024 I did the sober version of imagining the future. It included two key axes — whether the world holds climate change in check or doesn’t, and whether food technology advances a lot or a little — and the four futures that fall out of crossing them. In the future that I bank on most, the one with hard… 07 October 2026
SHRMP.bio The day I agreed with an admiral - on security, not on sailing (Why SHRMP.bio) I didn’t expect that, when I started working on a seafood startup, I would end up in an email exchange with an admiral. A pleasant one. Two years ago I built a set of scenarios for the future of food to work out whether building SHRMP.bio made sense. They kept returning the same uncomfortable answer: that in the futures worth… 18 September 2026
SHRMP.bio Australia says it has no food-security problem. I am not convinced. (Why SHRMP.bio) Australia’s official position, put plainly, is that it does not have a food-security problem. The reasoning is straightforward: the country produces far more food than it eats, exports something like seventy per cent of its agricultural output, and sits inside a global trading system that spreads supply risk across many producers. A temporary shortage on a supermarket shelf is a… 18 September 2026
SHRMP.bio In sixty pages on Australia's future, the word aquaculture does not appear On the first day of our “Innovate to Grow” programme they gave us Our Future World to read, and I did the slightly vain thing you are not supposed to admit to: I wanted to see how my own reading of the future stacked up against the national science agency’s. Whether, in short, I was as clever as I had… 09 September 2026
SHRMP.bio The day the SHRMP students went fully AquaCore For some university projects, the students never have to leave the room. Or look up from their computer. Especially if it’s pure “knowledge work”. They get an assignment, they may meet on campus, they may present to the person who gave them the assignment, and get a mark. A SHRMP.bio project is not that. And our students went for a… 13 August 2026
SHRMP.bio The future of seafood is on land. And now it needs a lab. In late 2024 I sat down to work out what the world would eat in 2050, and whether SHRMP.bio was a silly idea. The work is all online — four scenarios, the population maths, the trade picture, the technology trends. Around seven billion people in cities by mid-century, a lot of them old. Arable land moving north and south, out… 24 July 2026
SHRMP.bio The Potential of On-shore Aquaculture Recap Significant changes are expected to occur over the coming 25 years and those changes are across a range of areas, often interlinked, sometimes compounding: the forces influencing our future include climate change, population growth, food security, technological advancements, logistics, trade, and nutrition – together with social and political changes (which we have not considered in detail in our analysis). 13 November 2024
SHRMP.bio Aquaculture Technology Trends Before we dive into our scenarios that intersect technology trends with climate change over the coming articles, let’s start with a brief background on how we have categorised technology trends into two main groups: “Extreme Tech” vs “Adaptation Tech” Extreme Tech - This category includes innovative approaches to food production that may have a slower acceptance rate under normal circumstances. 12 November 2024
SHRMP.bio Future Scenarios - Overview We analysed technology trends (focussing on food production), their development rates, and our ability to mitigate climate change, resulting in four scenarios. These scenarios range from minimal technological progress and failed climate action to significant technological advancements that successfully limit global warming. Scenario 1: Failed Efforts to Mitigate Climate Change & Limited Technological Progress This world is characterised by conflict,… 12 November 2024
SHRMP.bio Scenario: Significant Technological Advances & Limiting Global Warming We analysed technology trends and their rates of development alongside our ability to mitigate climate change, resulting in four scenarios. These scenarios range from minimal technological progress and failed climate action to significant technological advancements and successfully limit global warming. But We are only discussing the two scenarios that include significant technology advancement in more detail, mainly as we are… 12 November 2024
SHRMP.bio Scenario: Significant Technological Advances & Failed Efforts to Mitigate Climate Change We analysed technology trends and their rates of development alongside our ability to mitigate climate change, resulting in four scenarios. These scenarios range from minimal technological progress and failed climate action to significant technological advancements and successfully limiting global warming. However, as a technology startup, we will focus on the two scenarios that involve substantial technological progress in greater detail,… 12 November 2024
SHRMP.bio The Forces Shaping the Future of Seafood — 2. Trade Trade and logistics are not areas we analyse extensively ourselves. However, understanding population dynamics and the shift towards urban living indicates that decentralised, local manufacturing close to the customer would be highly advantageous. In 2012, Deutsche Post DHL commissioned a “futures study.” Although it is over 12 years old, the full report remains interesting and relevant - and can be… 08 November 2024
SHRMP.bio The Forces Shaping the Future of Seafood — 1. Customers: The Human Population by 2050 In our previous post on Predicting “The Future of Aquaculture” we outlined how we have created a set of extreme scenarios using Cambrian Future’s FLP-IT approach, focussing on customers, (food) trade and distribution, and advancements in how food products will be sourced. Several forces are shaping our future, including climate change, population growth, food security, technological advancements, logistics, trade, and… 07 November 2024
SHRMP.bio Predicting the Future: How can it be done? Although the logic behind modern, high-tech food manufacturing seemed obvious to us at SHRMP.bio, we often found that our audience didn’t immediately share this view when we launched in early 2024. We recognized the importance of clearly communicating the core assumption behind SHRMP.bio: that we must prepare for the future with a longer horizon of 10 to 15 years by… 28 October 2024
SHRMP.bio The Opportunity in Modern Aquaculture: A Brief Overview We foresee that by 2050 the world will need new ways to make food. And we expect that high-tech aquaculture will be a part of the solution. Over the next 25 years, we will experience significant changes: Population growth and demographic shifts are projected to bring our global population to 10 billion, with 7 billion of those people living in… 22 October 2024
SHRMP.bio Why try and build SHRMP.bio in Australia? Because, in theory, Australia has everything needed to succeed (and build a whole new Future Industry). Are you dependent on backing from Australia? Have you thought about building SHRMP.bio somewhere else? Since the beginning, we have been asked these questions, often reflecting on the “deeptech” and biotech vision behind SHRMP.bio, along with the associated time and capital needs and their… 17 October 2024
SHRMP.bio Startmate's Buildmate begins... Because SHRMP.bio won the Audience Choice Award at the LaunchClub Pitch Night in Melbourne in June, we scored free access to the new Buildmate programme - which also means that SHRMP.bio is now headquartered at Stone & Chalk in the Melbourne CBD. We came out of LaunchClub with one conclusion and two key questions. Our main conclusion was: The worst… 09 September 2024
SHRMP.bio 2024 - so far: From LaunchClub to Buildmate We came up with the idea for SHRMP.bio because we found the work on lab-grown meat intriguing. However, we also thought that it may potentially be slightly over-engineered for its purpose. However, we truly believe in the fundamental reasons for the development of cellular agriculture and recognise the necessity of these approaches. The world will need new methods for food… 05 September 2024
SHRMP.bio A Blue Ocean of Opportunity - Blue Ocean Ventures Committed to Bio-Technology Startup SHRMP.bio as it Predicts Significant Future Value of Technologies Enabling High-Tech On-Shore Aquaculture. Driven by the momentum generated through incubator programmes, Blue Ocean Ventures continues developing its spin-out company SHRMP.bio. High-tech Aquaculture may present a significant future economic opportunity through creation and ownership of key production technologies but Aquaculture is a challenging innovation environment. Based on SHRMP.bio’s experience, it appears that Australia has the potential to explore these significant but untapped economic opportunities. 04 September 2024
SHRMP.bio The Genesis of SHRMP.bio The concept behind SHRMP.bio was born from the founder’s previous experience in developing a biopharmaceutical manufacturing technology and process. While exploring alternative applications for their pharmaceutical bioprocessing technologies, the idea of lab-grown meat as a potential solution for future food security was considered. However, despite being a potential solution, lab-grown meat seems over-engineered and still faces significant challenges. This led… 01 May 2024
SHRMP.bio Blue Ocean Ventures Launches SHRMP.bio, a Blue Bio-Technology Startup Developing Sustainable Seafood Manufacturing Technologies. The future of seafood is on land – and SHRMP.bio plans to create it. [Melbourne, Victoria, Australia]: Venture studio Blue Ocean Ventures today announced the spinning out of its first development project. The new biotech startup SHRMP.biois developing the technologies to build a seafood manufacturing system ready for the challenges of the 21stCentury. SHRMP.bio aims tomake sustainable seafood possible through… 29 February 2024