From the ocean floor to your plate
How an aquatic delicacy can help with climate, diets, and reefs worldwide
Biases and Priors
Team Coral has always attempted, as all good writers should, to be upfront regarding our biases and priors (it’s a long list). Among these is our belief that degrowth, the concept that humans need to have fewer children and accept lower standards of living in service of fixing the climate, is well intentioned but also dumb. Before we dive into the seaweed-smelling meat of today’s piece, a quick word on that particular lens to the climate problem.
It’s likely apparent to our readers that we’re a married couple, and eventually going to bring little Coralites into the world. Much of Coral, which started as a newsletter and is now growing into a larger portfolio of activities (more on this soon), is the story of our relationship. We had a lot of long, late-night talks early on about our hopes and dreams and fears for the future, and what we could do to create a better world for our children. Given that we’re both experienced technologists, techno-optimists, company builders, and more than slightly crazy, we decided to do this.
Technology is a fancy word for leverage. Builders identify a problem, and invent means by which small inputs (of electricity, amino acids, iron ore, code, whatever) can create large outputs. Doing this elegantly allows solutions to scale, which is best exemplified in the modern economy by the parabolic growth curves of early-stage technology companies. We want to create a world in which our kids enjoy a better quality of life than we do, live in abundance, and have no fear of natural disasters. So, we’ve dedicated our time to finding and growing the most impactful business attacking a slice of that problem.
Today’s slice; What the hell are we going to feed them?
Food
It is simultaneously true that we eat a lot, and probably not enough meat; The average American adult consumed a net 215 pounds of animal protein in 2022, per the USDA. This equates to about 24,000 grams of protein annually, or a little under 70 grams per day. The same adult weighs approximately 180 pounds, per Gallup, and as we know is subject to a host of chronic diseases brought on by the composition of their diet. There is much debate among researchers about optimal dietary composition for health, but it seems clear that 1. Less processed carbohydrates are better, 2. Lean protein and vegetable dishes are excellent (see NIH research on blue zones for much more), and 3. Protein consumption of .75-1 g per lb bodyweight seems to have protective effects against osteoporosis and muscle loss with age.
In 2022, the US was the world’s largest importer of meat, at about 2.9bn pounds, again per the USDA. The population of the US is increasing by about .5% per year, per Brookings, and meat production accounted for around 15% of greenhouse gas emissions, per the UN FAO. It’s also worth noting that red-meat production emits a lot of methane, which has a shorter atmospheric life but is more warming than CO2. Not good.
So, we eat a lot of meat, need substantially more dietary protein in order to boost population-scale lifespan and healthspan, and current-state meat production is already a massively unsustainable greenhouse gas emitter. What to do?
Back to Miami
Coral is spending a few weeks exploring ocean tech in the magic city of Miami. We’re delighted to find that we’re late to the party; The Seaworthy Collective, based in Florida, has done wonderful work to create a thriving entrepreneurial community focused on building in the water.
Among their most interesting and promising PortCos is PanaSea, based in Panama and creating positive economic outcomes via the humble sea cucumber. Let’s dive in (I’m so sorry for this joke), and snorkel around the social and financial potential of this fascinating business.
What’s a sea cucumber?
Probably not what you expect. It’s a marine invertebrate animal, related to starfish, with minimal sensory organs and no brain, which has been used as a delicacy and protein source in Chinese cuisines for close to a thousand years. While we have no opinion on the purported longevity, cancer treatment, and aphrodisiac benefits (ok we do, probably not), it’s high in lean protein, magnesium, Vitamin A & C, niacin, and assorted other valuable micronutrients.
Sea cucumber is also extra sustainable; It requires only algae and sunlight during incubation and extracts nutrients from the sand where it sits during adulthood. As biproducts of digestion, it releases ammonia, which lowers ocean pH and makes oceanic carbon sequestration significantly more effective and less damaging, and calcium carbonate, which is a vital ingredient for coral reef regrowth.
We wish all land cucumbers, which are tasteless watery messes, could be so beneficial. Ed. Chris, who wrote this, is entitled to his many wrong opinions.
PanaSea
Great, multiply-beneficial product, with a clear market pull (China consumes $8-10bn of sea cucumbers annually, and yes you read that correctly), and the wonderful added benefit of providing high-paying employment in Panama. We love the business, we just think it needs to add a few layers.
We have written previously about the horrific loss of coral reefs worldwide. This has numerous downstream effects, many of them not fully understood. In short; Ocean acidification, habitat loss for innumerable aquatic species, lack of natural seawalls to prevent storm-caused erosion, plummeting property values. This last point is important because it creates incentives. We need money flowing into the space, and real estate portfolios being literally and figuratively underwater is an excellent way to draw deep-pocketed interest.
Our suggestion to PanaSea is this; Come build in the US, too. Do so through a few motions.
Public / private partnerships with tourism-economy coastal towns. The Florida Keys are lovely this time of year, really like when people pay a lot of money to come snorkel through their reefs, and would pay for a sustainable, reef-protective solution.
Do the same thing, only this time with the billionaire coastal estates and other private interests. Six of the ten largest landowners in Hawaii are private entities, for example. Create sea cucumber farms to protect their reefs and boat landings, and layer in profit-share agreements for…
Category creation of sea cucumbers in the US.
Partner with school districts in the towns from our first point to add a “sea cucumber day” to their lunch rotations. Bring nutritious, high-protein recipes from Chinese cuisine to our schools, and sell them the product farmed in their home towns. Have you ever eaten a school cafeteria soup, tofu dish, or veggie burger? We have, and they’re gross and nutritionally vapid. We owe our kids better.
The billionaires in our second point? They have private chefs, many of whom are deeply connected into fine-dining restaurant empires. Partner here to add sea cucumber dishes to their menus, create dried snack SKUs in supermarkets, and watch as the trickle-down industry network effects bring customers running to your door.
We’re conscious of the fact that PanaSea is a proudly Panamanian company, and is unlikely to want to scale through the US model of raising loads of dilutive capital, and trying to reach profitability before the funds run dry. Nor do we think they should. The model above allows the company to create both supply & demand for their product in single production sites; ie, contracting with a Florida town to both produce product, and sell it straight back to them, which allows for scaling through profit and bringing money consistently back into the business.
PanaSea, we’re fans and love what you’re doing. Let us know if we can help.