Algaria

Nowadays we have two main challenge the fist one is, acoording with FAO data, almost 1/3 of the word population suffer from hunger or malnutrition, and the second one is that the currently food supply chain with solely agriculture  account 24% of the current C02 gas emission  and will not be enough  to feed the nearly 10 billion people expecting in the near future.

Our mission is to accelerate the global transition to sustainable food by producing the most sustainable and healthy food ingredients and proteins through the most advanced organic cultivation system, driven by nature’s power!

Due to environmental and health & wellness renew people conscience, plant based and meet alternative demand increase really fast. Despite this demand still few products are on the market. An emerging trend is developing functional food and meet alternatives that nowadays are highly processed and overusing soy or pee as source of protein, witch come from far east with a scarce control of supply chain and risks for the images of food company in the long term. A reliable and with the smallest environmental impact are microalgae source of proteins pack with vitamins antioxidant and minerals . Already known as a dietary supplement industry, their constrain to use as a natural ingredients derived by low awareness and fragmented supply chain and costs. 

Algaria’s breakthrough cultivation technology mimics the functioning mechanisms of the soil, taking in input byproduct from food industry and transform it as a mineral medium from algae thanks to a our patent tecnology we are able to reuse  to self-maintain the ideal growth conditions homogeneously at different scales and with the smallest energy inputs. Furthermore, it uniquely sequesters CO2 from most exhaust gasses, even with very low CO2 concentration and at atmospheric pressure.

Image a solution that aiming to feed the world’s present and future generations while preserving our planet in a low costs way. Reusing the exhaust material come out from other process and sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere in a virtuous circle that never end, this want to be the output of Algaria's work. 

Food industry as by-products Suppliers 

These food industry will not have to spend energy to think about where to dispose their byproducts.  We have signed LoI to utilise their biomass by-products  from dairy industry and apple juice industry. in the first scenario they produce 10 m3/day biomass and spend 0,60 €/m3 to dispose it, in the second scenario have 30.000 m3/month with an 0,35 €/m3 of disposal cost. this different cost depend on the amount of organic carbon rich biomass to dispose.  

Biogas farmers as new income process 

farmers join the novel opportunity to reuse their thermal energy from biogas plant to feed algae producing system. This way, farmers will have extra income, could hire more employees. Currently this scenario has to be implemented. but the major advantage in producing microalgae will be the zero waste and CO2 capturing  process and valorising the by-products from food industry. 

At the stage of our work we should scaling up the process in order to make a reliable production for industrial clients, the application of all the process is already demonstrate in small scale, whit an 800 m2 existing  facility where we applied the automation and where we run our patent technology . In order to be align with our target needs we must scaling up the production process  and full strength  go to market strategy. Demonstrate a new full value chain of the microalgae biomass. starting from Spirulina the most well known microalgae strain 

The industrial preparation of food for humans generates a large amount of waste and byproducts that can be an extraordinary alternative nutrients source to produce high nutritional value food products in a sustainable way. e-Pond and e-Bioponics will allow this step-forward with respect to BAT.

The main benefits for the food value-chain will be reducing operative  cost for  to obtain super-food or food grade dyes (phycocianin) for food sector and also vitamins and aminoacids extracts in a clean and sustainable way. Biostimulants are also produced from a renewable and clean source as it is the e-BioPond.

The membrane-based extraction technology that will be used is different from existing methodologies such as: sodium phosphate buffer, organic acid or inorganic acid as it does not uses extra chemicals that needs to be treated after the process.

Bioelectroactive artificial soil - Organic-rich secondary products of food industry and wastewaters are important sources of nutrients. We propose a technological alternative to recover these nutrients and grow microalgae cultures: the e-Pond, assisting microalgae cultivations by the introduction of a microbial electrochemical technology: the electroactive soil (e-Soil). In e-Pond® (International deposit N. PCT/IB2019/060329 del 29 Novembre 2019, ITALY - N. 102018000010683 - 29/11/2018), the e-Soil is used as a separation between the microalgae culture and the organic byproduct. The pore dimensions of the e-Soil materials (<500 nm) is smaller than the microbial cells. This keeps the two environments separated in terms of microbial contamination. In the inner volume of e-Soil modules, a conductive material acts like a bio-snorkel, where wastewater flows and electroactive microorganisms anaerobically oxidize (biocatodic processes) the organic fractions and liberate CO2/HCO3- and minerals (NH4+, NO3-, etc.), while the reduction of terminal electron acceptors (ultimately dissolved oxygen) (biocatodic processes) can happen at a distance, thanks to the presence of electroactive materials. Simultaneously, inorganic carbon and dissolved nutrients are allowed to diffuse through the separator to the cathodic chamber, where microalgae utilize them as growth medium. High-quality microalgae biomass can be obtained from this system. Animal feed supplements, plant biostimulants, as well as pigment extracts can be obtained from different microalgae strains, with food-grade quality, depending on the inlet substrate. 

A prototype scale e-Pond® system (TRL = 6) is available at the facilities of Algaria srl, in Casalbuttano ed Uniti (CR, Italy).

the first activities was coupling different technologies in order to have a first output and apply in the short  term outcomes related to our business model. 

but the technologies could be applied in different industry and propose an alternative methods to produce our food, a medium term application thought was vertical farm where soil less could be 

and the long term outcomes will be application in small scale tools for bioelectrochemical application at home, with the aim of carbon capture. 

Our beneficiaries are manufacturer to whom we buy their byproducts, and environments avoiding eutrophication. So far, we have two suppliers for byproducts in dairy industry and apple juice industry, for a total of 500cubic meter of their byproducts avoiding them the expensive process of treating byproduct as waste and the consequent generation of pollutants during this practice and most important thing avoiding the lost of valuable compound such as Phosphorous, Nitrogen and other nutrients as a crucial aspect for agriculture, food, industry, water. as reported by https://www.phosphorusplatform.eu/

Our projection for the following year is to produce and sell 20 tons of microalgae as raw products or extracted products. This translates in reusing at least 50.000 cubic meter of byproducts, and capturing roughly 38 tons of CO2 form the atmosphere. 

our goal is to accelerate the global transition to sustainable food by producing the most sustainable and best healthy food ingredients through the most advanced organic cultivation system, driven by nature’s power. 

Currently, our main goal is to scale-up our technological process, moving from pilot plant of 800 m2 to an industrial scale. This task involves structuring our organisation toward Sales&marketing process and internationalise the sales, built up the industrial scale facility . Today, we can produce 1 ton of Spirulina raw products and 110 kg of phycocyanin per year, we can reuse 500 cubic meter of industrial byproduct to sustain the process, and the goal is to gradually increase our byproducts consumption as we do trials on installations with bigger capacities. For the following year, we expect to quintuplicate our annual capacity. 

In five years, our goal is to have already installed our first industrial facility and start focusing on reaching new markets and replicating the project in other countries by generating partnerships.

Our projection for the following year is to consume at least 50.000 cubic meter of byproducts, and capturing roughly 38 tons of CO2 form the atmosphere. 

SECURE PRODUCTION CAPACITY Scaling up the production plant to 5000 m2 to better prove the economic feasibility of the project and in turn decrease production costs, and  consolidate our food prototyping process. 

SECURE MARKET DEMAND extending our collaboration with small-medium manufacturer to decrease risk of dependancy of few-big customers and strengthen our Spireat brand with distribution collaborating partnership.  

FULFILLED QUALITY CERTIFICATION: such as Iso ( process certification ) and FDA ( quality certification) and Eco Labeling

INCREASING PRODUCTION CAPACITY: we rising interest from investors and preparing our first crowdfunding campaign to cope with our financial needs 

SECURE MARKET DEMAND: signing LOI from industrial manufacturer (10) in order to secure at list 40% demands of our new production capacity 

FULFILLED QUALITY CERTIFICATION: we already obtained and  fulfilled organic and HACCP certification, and prepared all the necessary documentation to get the certification already mentioned, This 3rd party acknowledgement or certification facilitate customers acquisition. 

Today we are a team of 9 people, with facility in Cremona and operational and commercial office in Milano, Italy. We have the expertise necessary to run our technology and to further scale up process . We are 3 full time cofounders, 2 full time scientists, 1 full time facility  manager 1 full time
Sales&marketing director, 1 part time community manager and 1 part time marketers and graphical designer. We also outsource all IT and Engineering & food prototyping related tasks to a specialise laboratory. 

Two of the cofounders,Andrea Schievano and I, invented the Bioelectrochemical process to sustain microalgal from food byoproducts industry. Andrea is an academic with over 25 years of experience in Environmental engineering. We hired and selected a team of 2 scientists (50% PhD´s, 50% MSc) that have combined experience in designing equipment and leading R&D projects. Andrea supervises the advancements of this team.

The third cofounder, Stefano Lanzoni takes care of the production facility  he also directs all supply chain needs: recollection of byproducts and their transportation , ordering and storage of materials and distribution of final product he also supervises the work of our facility worker and the operational at the facility  engineer. 

I take care of the finance of the company, public relations, human resources, general administration and funding. Often, I also supervise new technological projects, but most of the operational time is spent as a Sales and Marketing strategies and coordination together with Sales director that coordinates the marketing manager and the community manager (for our web and e-commerce platform).

Having a technological background with some experience at directing and administrating R&D projects, I am constantly learning how to improve my abilities in finance and general administration.

We have broad collaboration network with accademia for the two cofounder previous experience as a senior researcher.

We have a formal agreement with:

-University of Milan and Bologna for Food prototyping

-University of Milan and Almeria (spain) for technical and R&D activity. 

-We are currently working with 3 large companies and 10 SME company in the food industry for providing spirulina as an ingredient in their new formulations. 

-we further work with one company for providing them food dyes ,we can’t disclose any further information without their authorisation.

Our revenue model will be based upon the sale of Spirulina and Phycocyanin as ingredient for nutraceutical food and superfood.

Nearly 80-82% of the sales are done through business channel, i.e. from producers to manufacturers; whereas, consumer channel account for only 18-20% of the total spirulina sales. Business channel sales expected to register 9%–10% growth by 2025.

We choose to follow a combined strategy of B2B and B2C marketing, with particular focus on B2B. Giving priority to this channel has two main reason. First one is spreading the use and better knowledge of the product itself and  as an ingredient for premium innovative finished products in the mass market throughout Mid and Big size Customers with  consolidated retail  products offer. Second one is quickly  ensure  ourselves sufficient sales volume for the economic sustainability of our company.

Large number of farmers harvest, dry and transform spirulina, the most well known microalgae sold in the market, in various forms such as powder, tablet, capsule, and phycocyanin. Producers supply these products in bulk form to various Market nutraceutical, food and beverage, animal feed, and agriculture industries. Producers also sell spirulina to distributors or traders, which then supply it manufactures. Manufactures produces spirulina supplements or spirulina-based products and supply further to consumer via distributor/wholesaler and retailer.

Algaria advantage compare with them is the lowered COGS price thanks to our technology that cut operational costs and minerals nutrients, and the environmental and sustainable operation that will boost marketing for industrial customers.

We would like to accelerate the adoption of our technology in broader sense, without any barriers in his potential application and delivery its benefits, we are aware that the framework of this technology could overcome some challenge and bring a major opportunity in the green industry. 

From Algaria point of view the application we work on and the challenge we are facing is narrowed for a specific business model and to the end product to the customer and Securing production capacity is the main challenge we have to overcome.Moreover, we can find a right match of VC fund that share the human-centered values of the SOLVE community and that will be very necessary for the following steps of out project.

The mentorship given during the 12-month program, will be needed to properly jump to the industrial scale. We are a team of novice entrepreneurs that will use some guidance in how to build an international company while warrantying the integrity of our impact.

Algaria is open for collaboration with food industry and brands to explore potential use of algae based products since we are expert on this biomass use and its potential. This collaboration enable us to innovate a new product with super food  approach that gives more impact as consumers product.

we are also open to technical to exploit in a broad sense our technology and its application to other business activity and process. 

We also would like to expand our partnerships with influencer organisations. We currently are involved with FAO, Future food institute,  and antenna France that we financing and support with our technological skills. we would welcome other similar organisations who are helping to influence the transition to a more sustainable food system. 

This price will enable our primary request of capital in order to achieve the bankability of our project, moreover get in contact with professional and social investor will be a starting point to ensure a milestone for reaching out our further request on crowdfunding activity.