It’s the beginning of 2021 and its Chinese New Year and Singaporeans are eating succulent thick- skinned sea cucumber at Teochew Restaurant Huat Kee. Rote Aquaculture Ventures (RAV) is harvesting sea cucumber from larvae first for consumption then as an ingredient used for anti-aging cosmetics and pharmaceutical applications.

Conversation with CEO of RAV, Tim Richardson:

AV: Describe the evolution of RAV into harvesting sea cucumber? What is RAV trying to solve?

TR: Sometimes in life you find what you are looking for when you aren’t looking for it. The founders, by chance, spotted a huge systemic supply and demand mismatch in the sea cucumber market and set about extensively researching the industry with a view to validating this mismatch. After a year of talking to buyers and traders it was abundantly clear that a huge opportunity existed as this niche industry transits from a traditional wild catch model to a new aquaculture business model. In addition to increased consumption of sea cucumber in China as a result of rising disposable incomes and new demand from novel healthcare applications, the traditional supply chain is near collapse. RAV will solve this problem.

AV: Describe Aqua-Tech and the aquaculture of farming sea cucumber vs. the traditional way of fishing sea cucumber?

TR: The lack of supply in the wild catch sea cucumber market due to overfishing, exploitation and lack of regulation that has led to the collapse of the traditional wild catch supply chains around Asia. As a consequence, aquaculture operations in China have sought address this shortage and opportunity by growing the cold-water sea cucumber species.

However, global warming and rising temperatures have wrought financial havoc on many of China’s cold-water farms leading to rising prices and even more pressure on the supply chain. In 2018 scorching weather in North Eastern China’s Liaoning province killed off large areas of sea cucumbers, causing economic losses of up to CNY6.9 billion (USD1 billion).

This has provided an exciting opportunity for tropical sea cucumber farmers, which are immune to rising temperatures to step up production and supply the ever-growing market. Tropical sea cucumbers grow larger and faster reaching harvesting potential well before their cold-water cousins. The technology to spawn and grow tropical species on the same commercial scale as the cold-water species is still in its infancy with a small number of farms producing low volumes. However, RAV is working with the technical team that were the first to spawn the tropical species in India in 1994 and have since gone on to perfect growing sea cucumbers on a large commercial scale.

AV: What is RAV’s USP? Is it efficiency innovation or value innovation?

TR: It’s efficiency innovation. RAV will be working exclusively in Indonesia with the most experienced tropical sea cucumber technical team that has over 20 years of experience in spawning and growing this species to harvesting size. A combination of proprietary biotechnology and commercial scale experience are the driving force and unique advantage of the project. In addition, the founders and its technical team have found the optimum location for growing tropical sea cucumber at the fastest rate due to the nutrient rich conditions around Rote island in NTT, Indonesia.

AV: How can harvesting sea cucumber in Indonesia provide advantages that impact ESG?

TR: Rote Island situated in NTT is one of Indonesia’s most economically and environmentally challenged locations. To put it into perspective there are few full-time employment opportunities, little to no fish stocks left after exploitation, scare fresh water, low rainfall, little to no infrastructure, low level of education. The island is unsuitable for commercial agriculture and is barely suitable for subsistence farming due to water shortage and poor soil. However, the island does have two strengths that make it an ideal location for sea cucumber farming:

• Infinite quantities of clean seawater at the right temperature range and levels

• Largescale ocean floors rich in nutrients.

Any investment that leverages these two strengths will make the kind of sustainable long-term impact that will improve lives and generate choices for generations to follow without putting pressure on natural resources.