Ocean clusters must demonstrate tangible commercial opportunities if they are to build industry engagement and deliver greater value from seafood resources, according to Iceland Ocean Cluster founder Thor Sigfusson.
Delivering the keynote presentation at the inaugural Scottish Ocean Cluster Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, Sigfusson said collaboration between industry, entrepreneurs, and researchers is critical to developing new businesses from currently underutilized seafood resources, but he warned that clusters couldn’t rely on long-term promises of economic and environmental benefits.
“We cannot have an ocean cluster that’s saying, within 10 years, life is going to be better,” Sigfusson said. “We need to be able to tell people that within, let's say, two to three years, things will happen.”
He described this approach as identifying the “low-hanging fruit” – relatively straightforward opportunities capable of demonstrating the commercial potential of greater seafood utilization and building confidence among businesses.
Sigfusson said this had been central to the development of the Iceland Ocean Cluster, which he established in 2011.
Sigfusson said the scale of the opportunity is huge, with an estimated 20 million metric tons (MT) of currently underutilized materials available globally. He said the seafood sector should reconsider its use of the word “waste,” and instead regard it as a resource.
“There should not be any waste in the seafood industry,” he said.
Iceland is now achieving around 90 percent utilization of its fish, and Sigfusson said significant opportunities remain in proteins and other materials that are still being discarded or used in low-value applications.
One of the Iceland Ocean Cluster’s early projects focused on fish skin, which had previously generated little or no value for fishing companies. Students were brought in to develop a business plan for converting fish skin into collagen powder. The prospect of generating around USD 1.50 (EUR 1.29) per kilogram from material that had previously had little value immediately changed the response of fishing-company executives, he said.
“Then suddenly they opened their eyes. Suddenly there was interest,” Sigfusson said.
Citing collagen, leather, and consumer products as now proven commercial examples, the value of fish skin can increase substantially further along the value chain, he said.
Today, fish skin derived collagen powder is up from USD 12 (EUR 10.32) to USD 20 (EUR 17.20) per kilogram. At the same time, fish leather is at USD 50 (EUR 43), the collagen going into retail products is valued at USD 120 (EUR 103), while the fish skins being used as wound treatments are at USD 2,500 (EUR 2,151) per kilogram.
One of the latest opportunities the Iceland Ocean Cluster is pursuing is based off of a successful use of salmon sperm, which is now being used as a form of Botox facial treatment. Using that idea, the Iceland Ocean Cluster has invested in a Norwegian company that’s looking at similar applications with cod sperm, Sigfusson said.
“Everything seems to indicate these proteins in the oceans are getting more and more valuable…so there’s an opportunity here,” Sigfusson said. “What's interesting is that the fisheries are really good at what they're doing, but they understand they are not pharmacists. They're often not really good marketers either. They need to bring other people in.”
That, he said, is where clusters have a role to play as a “matchmaking” platform between seafood companies, entrepreneurs, researchers, and other industries.
Praising the planning and development work that’s gone into the creation of the Scottish Ocean Cluster, Sigfusson suggested that Scotland’s opportunity now is to build on its existing strengths, including its history of innovation, natural resources, and growing startup ecosystem.
He also said the Cluster can help address what he described as fragmentation in the country's innovation landscape.
“I honestly think it could be a game changer – [being] active and working on the idea of bringing people that have never been in the industry into the industry,” Sigfusson said. “That's basically what [clusters] are. We are matchmaking all the time.”
The Iceland Ocean Cluster's approach is now being replicated through an expanding international network, which Sigfusson anticipates could reach around 20 clusters by the end of the year, either formally established or in preparation.
But he stressed that expansion would only be meaningful if the individual clusters demonstrate results.
“It only grows if these clusters show that they can use the low-hanging-fruit model,” he said.
