Revolutionizing Seafood: Traceability, Transparency, and Tech with Donna Lanzetta

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Welcome to the Mr. Beacon podcast. My name's Steve Statler. This week we're going to be talking to Donna Lanzetta who is the CEO of multiple businesses. She runs a fish farm. She also runs a blockchain middleware track and trace She owns a restaurant as well. So this is a super interesting perspective. A lot of the things that really excite me about the space we cover in this podcast is the view we have of what's going to come in the future.

And a really important aspect of that is end-to-end visibility. And Donna is an entrepreneur who's making end-to-end visibility happening because she... owns the upstream fish farm, the downstream restaurant and the business that can provide the connectivity between those two. So that this future that so many of us are working towards where consumers can understand so much more about where the food and clothing and other products have come from.

buying and also how they've been treated on the way and a future where manufacturers can connect directly with consumers and potentially make huge savings, reduce massive reductions in the cost of goods and in carbon when you can do that it's really exciting and i think one of the places where we're going to see this end-to-end connectivity happen.

is in smaller businesses. I think the wine trade is another one where I know that there are businesses that are working on putting ambient technology onto cases of wine. and initially going downstream a little bit but ultimately down to the consumer. So it's an exciting time in Ambio IoT and that's underscored by the fact that ABI Research have published another report on Ambient IoT. This one has got a volume forecast, which is always good.

Numbers make the world go around and their forecast is 1.1 billion ambient IoT devices by 2030. Now, of course, we have no idea whether this will come to fruition. I guess the one thing we know is it's going to be wrong. It'll probably either be a little optimistic or a little pessimistic. But I think it's a reasonable guess. I personally believe it's on the conservative side. I know of at least three customers that are using Ambient IoT.

for coarse grain tracking of things who have plans in the next two years. 2027 to get to roughly that number as they go down to case level tracking in retail and returns tracking. online commerce and parcel tracking in the postal space. So, but who knows? It'll be exciting to see that roll out. so if you want to stay in touch with what's happening and connect directly with me i would love to meet you i'm going to be attending

at least three events between now and the end of the year. I'm speaking at them. The first one is called TechBlick Future of Electronics. It's going to be in Boston. June the 11th and 12th and I'm going to be talking about connecting artificial intelligence and ambient IoT, this new field of ambient intelligence.

so looking forward to to that and then later that month june 23rd 24th i'm going to be in amsterdam aipia which is the active intelligent packaging industry association and i'm going to be on a panel talking about digital product passports. It's the opening panel. It's sponsored by our friends at IDENTIVE. Thanks to the folks at Identif for inviting not just me, but we have representatives from STMicro.

who make chips that go into NFC tags. We've got the leader of the NFC forum who's going to be there. Thomas Roding, who is the vice chair of JTC24, the standards group that's working on digital product passports. He's also the CEO of Naraviero.

always have a problem saying that but they're a digital product passport as a service company over in europe i'm going to be really interested to meet him uh he's really got his finger on the pulse of what's happening An old friend and colleague of mine, Venu Guttlapalli, who's the CEO of another San Diego-based company, Tag & Track, he's going to be on the panel as well.

so that's that and then the last event uh in november uh november the fourth and the sixth is going to be Embedded World North America that's going to be in Anaheim just north of where I live here in California And the Ambient IoT Alliance has got two hours on the agenda. There's going to be three presentations, a panel.

We'll see who's actually going to be presenting what. I'm definitely going to be there because it's pretty much on my doorstep and our hope is to get one of the customers who's actually using Ambient IoT to talk. the alliance is actually working on some really interesting white papers one which is a summary of all of the standards activity that's going on across bluetooth

Wi-Fi and cellular. And so I'm hoping that that is going to be at least one of the presentations. And there's another one on ROI and use cases. I'm lobbying for both of those to be represented, but we'll see as we learn more about that. I'll share details here. And lastly, before we get to Donna, I just wanted to tell you a bit about what we're doing at my new company, Ambi, which is spelled A-M-B as in Ambient and then AI.

We've got a YouGov survey which we're going to be publishing in the next month. It's about expiry dates, which is one of the things that's going to change drastically.

as we get intelligence in the supply chain we can make expiry dates a lot more accurate and it turns out according to this survey people really want that so this is one thing that we're working on they're also working on an ambient iot report which is going to be a really substantial report on the standards, the scenarios for the rollout of Ambient IoT. the vendors that are out there.

The last thing is, as a company, we're focusing on brands. We're focusing on and looking for brands that are interested in direct connections with their customers using AI, using Ambient IoT and using this AI assistant that we're developing here at Ambient. So that's what we're doing in the company. Those are the events that are happening. Interesting research. But what you probably came for is my conversation with...

Donna Lanzetta, CEO of multiple companies doing end-to-end track and trace in the seafood market. Enjoy.

Donna thanks so much for coming on the podcast it's really great to have you on the show it's great to be here Steve thanks for having me I love to speak about aquaculture so Yes, and I was just thinking about my questions to you and everything that you've done and you've done a lot of things over the years I was going through your web history but in terms of aquaculture and

seafood, traceability, ethical sourcing. You've got that problem surrounded. You've got the restaurant, you've got the production, the fish farm, and you've got the technology. So you've got kind of the beginning and the middle and the end. What are the problems that you're trying to solve? I think you're taking a very holistic approach. I'm very interested in what's motivating you to do all of these things. Well, it's a tapestry. So really, we started with Monofish Farms.

in order to feed the world, to be able to grow protein in the ocean, in federal water, and to be able to do it differently without impact on the environment. and to track and trace and prove what we're doing so that we can prove with science the efficiency of ocean farming and also the opportunity to have a zero carbon footprint theoretically with not using any natural resources and having responsible sustainable behavior at sea.

That was just really the beginning of the journey is starting on these permits and we have the two offshore farms. that we're permitting now full application in in the Gulf. for a site 23 miles off of Pensacola. where we'll have 12 submerged net pens. So this is mana... fish farms and manna you know I have to confess I'm not a regular church goer but I grew up in England where where where the church and the school there they're actually intertwined there's no

separation of church and state. It's really the opposite. So manna, you know, it's kind of the Hebrew God creating food for the Israelites is there.

lost in the desert right that's that was the thing and I guess I was really surprised as I looked at some of your websites that there are huge problems with food production, even seafood production. Is that not the case? Well, you know, in the U.S., we're importing 91% of our seafood, and we're doing quite a bit now in land-based. in the U.S., and that's great. Of course, LandBase uses water and land and natural resources where the opportunity to grow in the ocean and not use those resources.

Of course, we'll use other resources because we need to use fuel to get back and forth, but we're looking at electric vessels. We're looking at ways to do it differently so that we don't have that great impact. and I think it can be done. In the U.S. there are no federal water fin fish farms. We do have a state water farm that's very successful. Blue Ocean Mariculture in Hawaii is growing Kampachi in state waters, beautiful. What's Kampachi? Kampachi, it's like a yellowtail. Oh, okay. Alright.

so it's a delicious fish okay and and that's so i i'm not clear on what this distinction is between what you're doing which is sounds like it's a very slow process in terms of getting all of the permits that are required but you're literally You have pens out close to shore where the fish are cultivated. How is that different to what's going on in Hawaii? In Hawaii, they're near to shore because they can get the depth that they need very close.

to shore. Down in Florida we would have to go 23 miles offshore in order to get the depth we need to use these submersible net pens. In New York, we've been doing marine spatial planning for a site off eastern Long Island that's nine miles offshore to get that depth that we need. So it really depends. where you are. There's about 37 federal and state agencies in the US that have to get on the same page.

in order to permit a farm in federal water. Right now we have no legislation or pathway, clear pathway to show how this can be done. We are pioneering to help create that pathway and help others who will come after us understand how it can be done faster because no farm will ever be viable if they have to spend 10 years getting permits. It's impossible.

which is what you've been doing yeah so yeah it's it's working for our own permits but also at the same time uh working to share information about how this can be streamlined in the future

So fish farming that's done onshore, you were gracious about it, but it's certainly got its critics in terms of the pollution and disease and so forth. And it's obviously... constrained by size, presumably if you're out at sea then a lot of those issues are mitigated. Yes, that's the whole idea to go out to sea and be able to have a 9,000 cubic meter net pen underwater with, let's say, 250,000 pounds of fish. We'll have 12. It's a lot of fish.

but if we don't introduce anything inorganic into the sea and we monitor right now we're doing very robust modeling to determine in that specific site well first to select the site that we believe will be suitable for farming and have the least impact. on the other ocean users and find a good spot and then to do our operations so we have a minimal impact.

We've committed to 100% transparency, so that will be interesting because everybody can watch along with us and we don't want to be mysterious about what we're doing. We want to be...

transparent and it really was that transparency commitment and traceability that kind of led me into the blockchain business because When you think about all that fish and everything coming through the supply chain and looking at the efficiency of the supply chain, it was another shock to learn that about 50%

to 70 percent on some species are mislabeled and not actually deficient. We're in a time right now where people want to know what they're what they're having they don't want to have products that are illegal or you know some type of IUU fishing. If they even know what IOU phishing is, right? So we have to educate them and what better way than through this platform that we've developed to track products through the supply chain. And can you explain what it is? Because I don't know what it is.

What it is, is we've convened a blockchain network and we're on the IBM Food Trust, or what used to be the IBM Food Trust. And what it does is it locks in the provenance of the product. where it was from, when it was harvested, and then we add tools to the platform to help seafood users in this sense temperature so we can track temperature carbon footprint tracking

so we can track that species authentication. These are important tools because if I'm going to pay for halibut i want to know that i'm actually getting halibut and not some species that's been substituted in so I think as we develop, there'll be more tools that will come in. And then we have the interoperability to link into other platforms.

Seafood Import Monitoring Program or FSMA, and all these tariffs that are now, you know, how do we regulate, how do we ensure that the products are compliant, are actually from where. they say they're from and not in fact going through one country to get to another country and you know to circumvent the tariffs so that's an interesting tool as well and now we're also seeing

You know, some farmers, I myself am an oyster farmer now while I'm waiting. Oh, really? Yes. But some farmers are performing ecosystem services, like oyster farmers are sequestering carbon. So we should calculate that and we need to log it in and we can bank it. in a carbon bank on the same platform that's tracking products. So we'll see how all that goes if you look into the European Union.

what's happening around the world with carbon credits, etc. I think it's something that may come our way down the line.

Yeah, I think more and more we're becoming educated into the problems that We as a species are reeking over the world, the industrialization that we've all benefited from in amazing, positive ways. has a cost and it seems like some people will just say well it's up to the government to kind of fix it but I think there's another set of people that feel like they want to use their power as consumer to have agency and to drive the changes that they want to see and you know ultimately

Change is driven by the people, isn't it? Whether it's people at the ballot box or people at the store, but you can't exercise change if you're in the dark. When we buy foods at the moment, we are largely in the dark, aren't we? The packaging doesn't permit a full audit trail of where things come from. It's minimal. Their goal is to get you to buy something and to cut the cost of the packaging and there's just practical limits. But now with AI, with phones,

There's this opportunity, isn't there, to see, well, am I making things worse? Am I making things better? And am I consuming something that's healthy, that's going to... help my family and and and so I think what you're doing is important and I think it's fascinating that you really have this 300 and

60 degree view of it and you know I think I'm not sure what the status is of your restaurant but I remember you and I talking about the fact that you had a restaurant and some of the challenges of informing people in that situation about what they're consuming and maybe you want to talk a little bit about that if you would.

Yes, yes. Plug for my restaurant, Monat Lobster Inn in Southampton, New York. But on May 2nd, we have the Seed to Soil Summit there, which is the local university having their conference at the School of Marine Science. and then after the conference they're coming over to have dinner in the restaurant. The restaurant is actually an opportunity to link the blockchain technology into the restaurant.

interoperate with our inventory system and actually have a QR code on our menu that guests will be able to scan and get accurate information, accurate being the operative word. about the products that they may be ordering you know we tracked we know we're doing we're going to do well and do the right thing with this company because it can only get better right we tracked a tuna from montauk just to see montauk new york Tuna Capital.

I don't know why, but so we tracked a tuna from Montauk. It was... bought on the dock by a broker, sold to another distributor, a broker, freezes it, brings it to Japan, it gets frozen, sold to another broker in Japan, sells it to another distributor in Japan. Second distributor brings it back to the U.S. It ends up at Fulton Fish Market, gets sold to a broker and then to another distributor. That last distributor brings it back to a restaurant on Long Island.

That was literally 30 miles away from where it was originally caught. and they're getting it six months later. And then the fisherman's being told, sorry, Mr. Fisherman, we can't give you the full amount from the auction because somewhere along the line, they didn't chill your fish properly, and you're only getting that. And that is, it's a travesty really when we think about the hard work that the fishermen do and the farmers. This is a tool that can be used by both.

to make sure to ensure quality to allow instant recalls if there's a problem and that will also reduce cost. to reduce costs of products liability insurance because of those safety features that are inherited in the platform. So it can only get better and can become more efficient.

we can get more money into the pockets of the fishermen and the farmers as they're rightfully entitled to. And also see where... Maybe there's too many middlemen really sucking the juice out of the industry. So, fish sauce. In your eyes. Yeah, so you can have some efficiencies that will reduce costs and improve freshness and extension.

shelf life and reduce waste and i think it's easy certainly easy for me to get on my soap box and and get into preach mode about The real problems that exist and use guilt and a desire for fixing terrible labor conditions is one of the things that I learned from your website.

exist, there's forced labor, slave labor involved in some of these supply chains. and I think it's very easy for this to become a downer but I think it's also important to paint the picture of how you know the enjoyment that can come if we deploy this technology i don't know if you have some thoughts on that but i do but i'll let you let's paint the picture of what this could be like in a world where those problems get fixed and why people can actually be happier in this world

Yes, I think I can envision it myself around oysters, especially right here in my region in New York. We have wonderful oyster farming, wonderful wild oysters. so to be able to have a row of barrels with oysters and where you could go down the line and scan and say oh look you know this oyster farmer is a woman or oh look this oyster farmer is from this particular area and we can look at where and how and whether they're wild and farmed and and we can engage around the oyster

and have taste testings and friendly competitions between, for here in Eastern Long Island, we have the North Fork and the South Fork, so we're having oyster farmers on both sides in various bays. so we can talk about the mirroir of the oysters and where they're from and which tastes best. Amen.

It's all fun and delicious. Yeah. People can have better tasting food that they really enjoy. And if I think about some of the best eating experiences I've had it's been going to like a farmers market where you meet the person that's grown the food and you get enthusiastic about it because it's basically there's a story you know mass produced food where you have no idea where it's come from there there really is no story it's

sustenance for subsistence rather than you know we've all got a short life to live let's let's enjoy our food and you know anyone that's been to a good restaurant and had a great waiter that's told the story of of where the wine or the food has come from knows that there's joy to be had when you understand where something has has come from but you know sometimes it's difficult even for a waiter to know what story to tell I guess you run a restaurant you've seen that yourself right

I've seen, and I've eaten at a lot of restaurants where the servers have given me misinformation. They're telling me, oh, it's... definitely wild when I know it's farmed because they think that's what I want to hear. I want to hear the truth, not what they think I want to hear. And what's evolving now is also liability, Steve.

liability for the restaurants that are saying they're serving local food and maybe it's been switched out and maybe it's not saying that they're serving you know Gulf shrimp when in fact the shrimp is from Thailand. And this happened just last summer out here. With us, my distributor had previously paid a fine of $50,000 for illegal product and then got criminally.

sued for allegedly being part of a conspiracy and the conspiracy was to move illegal seafood into the marketplace and with the fishermen and so what happened is they took a deal, testified against the fishermen, admitted they were part of a conspiracy to falsify records and books and really bring illegal product into the marketplace. They paid a $250,000 fine.

the second time and testified against the fisherman who now is in jail for three years. So this is a big problem that needs to be resolved. Now if I bought that product into my restaurant Conceivably I could be part of that conspiracy. I don't want to be part of a conspiracy. I can be charged with being part of that conspiracy.

I think we're seeing... staffs and restaurant owners that want to do the right thing that make commitments to do the right thing and then don't have the tools to do the right thing because of this seafood fraud which is rampant throughout the industry. How would you spend 200 million pounds?

I'm Sorrel, and I'm back for season two of the insanely lavish Rich Beyond My Wildest Dreams podcast, where hilarious guests get their hands on an imaginary 200 million pound jackpot on Euro Millions from the National Lockdown. I would buy tickets to go and see Backstreet Boys in the sphere. I'd buy the sphere? What are we talking about? The bougier, the better. Time to do a lunatic with all this Monday. Flattify Yorah!

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It's interesting. Working on starting my own company at the moment, I'm struck by how you need to have two sides. to your brain working on one hand there is a very realistic no BS cynical side and then the other side is the you know they would call it visionary and I'm not talking about Steve Jobs giving performance art presentations but basically a sense in your mind about where you want to head and optimism that things can really be better.

You were a lawyer, an attorney, a judge in a New York traffic court. I'm sure you saw a huge amount of... real life and I'd love to hear some stories about that maybe at another time but how do you keep that duality going in your head of optimism, idealism, vision with, you've seen some, you've probably seen a lot of people getting into trouble, laws broken, all that sort of thing. How do you do that?

Liar, liar, pants on fire. That was the hardest part about being in the legal field for all those years. flushing out the lies and there's so much uh So to have, when I think about flushing out the lies out of the seafood supply chain, what better tool than the blockchain? Because the blockchain provides an immutable record, can't be changed. It is what it is, and that's it, and we can work with that.

build on that and that's the way I see it you know with offshore I just wanted to circle back because you asked me about the near shore and I didn't really answer you but I think there is a place too for the near shore culture. And it's all about balance, Steve. It's about balancing production with the capacity of the environment. monitoring like I said putting our sensors so we can determine right now with our modeling where the sensor should go.

so we can check where the feed is going to land or likely to land and make sure we don't overfeed the fish offshore right you know even with the blockchain i i look to see once we have all the data of the seafood moving you know how can we build more with that whether we can have smart contracts and maybe an auction platform or a coin or one thing we're looking at is to move products through the waterway. Okay.

on an electric catamaran. And I'm looking to move from Huntington, New York, all the way up the coast to Maine and have AI determine where our stops are, what we need to pick up and drop off at which locations. And that's exciting. It's totally different and new.

Yeah. Innovative. We have some new tools. So let's go back to the tools. And you mentioned that you started this journey working with IBM Food Trust. my understanding is that they are retiring that offering now so what are your plans on that front how are you going to adapt with that reality we've gone with a new platform that has assumed the food trust if you will and that's where we're starting and what I've learned in the last six months

in assuming the operators who are already on the platform, is that Norwegians are way ahead of us. That's really what I... they were just way ahead not only um are there you know 12 norwegian salmon farms already using the platform that we can you know service them now as our our users it sets a model for sustainability and really for responsibility for the future. And it's not only the farms, there's others that are using the platform to move other products.

so um you know we're in we're excited for seafood but we're looking at other items that would benefit from the platform as well like timber or maybe baby or cannabis or um who knows

So this is just really the beginning. When you look at the Food Safety Modernization Act and the mandate for reporting, yes, it's been pushed back a little bit, but it's coming. It has to come. Yeah. Well, it's been pushed back 30 months, hasn't it? We've covered FISMA a couple of times. We had Frank Yanis on the podcast and the deadline was

January the 20th, 2026. So just basically half a year away. And surprise, surprise, the whole industry is not ready for that. So I think it got pushed back 30 months, which seems like a long time, two and a half years. but really it's still probably not enough time for absolutely everyone to do what needs to be done so the urgency hasn't gone away the government is requiring traceability because it saves lives and it also saves a lot of money because you don't want industry decimated.

Having automating traceability is clearly the way to go. Having this regulation is a driver for putting automation in that can just help you make more money as well as stay the right side of the law. You're working with Starfish, is that... correct okay to say that so wigs who's who was on the show as CEO of Starfish, and also when he was at IBM Food Trust, is actually the person that linked us together. So thank you, Wiggs. That's right.

can you talk a bit about what the Mana Seafood blockchain is going to be doing beyond the Starfish platform, what is what do you do to add to that and use it in your platform and who are the customers that you want for the Mana Seafood blockchain business. almost as competitors, although I guess your seafood's not really competing with beef and other food products. But who's your customer and what are you offering them?

Yes, so we offer them at Monoblockchain these tools that we're integrating into our system. It's not just straight tracking and tracing. because that's been pretty much established. But as we go from there to be able to have, as I said, these smart contracts and species authentication and other deliverables that will come. to the users and also the ability to interoperate and this is key. It was a missing piece for a while as we were starting because everyone has different systems.

different inventory systems in the restaurants, you know, different systems in the processing plant. different systems that all need to be connected in order for this platform to be efficient. So we offer the interoperability piece. as well as the specific tools per industry. I've been talking about seafood, but of course we're looking at meat. We already have some chicken on.

And I think you'll see some new exciting uses of the platform over the next year. A little teaser. You'll have to have me back. Very good. We will.

And so what's your approach? you know having a vision is kind of the fun part i guess of where you want to get to and you know the challenge is is like the sequence of and knowing what technologies to use when and not over building too early. So how are you organizing your go to market? Yes, so we have a huge team. We're spread out geographically in different ports and locations. We start locally. to showcase the benefits of the local platform, how we can guarantee that it's actually local fish.

through our local markets and our local restaurants etc etc and then we also because we're in norway already on with salmon on the platform that we start on that in a more global scale to be looking at high producing fish farms that would benefit from utilization of the platform. And we also, like I said, have these new uses that are coming out that'll be scaled up. It's almost like a blitz.

scale approach to this launch. I think over the next six months we'll be seeing a lot of activity and our pilots are underway now. to be able to start to use the data. promoting US seafood too, like using the oysters as a pilot. to be able to learn about oyster farming. calculate the sequestration of carbon, look and see who those farmers are, what made them become farmers, and get it all into a little 30-second video clip.

that consumers can watch and say, oh, For example, Peconic tonic oysters, two gentlemen from Australia. who just fell in love with oyster farming. Who knew? One lives in Queens, one lives in New Jersey. They bought a little farm out here with oysters, and they now have two million oysters in the water, and it's a labor of love.

So to learn about that and taste it too, that'll be fun. And I think we'll have some great activities at the... at the restaurant but right now I have four and a half acres across the street from the restaurant. and I'm working hard to build an aquaculture innovation center on that land, integrating the restaurant and the farmland, and then the farmland would serve as a demonstration farm.

tours could come schools could come you could walk through the farm and see and taste the oysters and see and maybe take a boat ride out to the oyster lease and come back or go around the farm and see them farming seaweed or mushrooms or how they're making compost. How they're using the oyster shells to make oyster reef.

And the whole circularity of it all, right? We'll have bees and... honey and eggs and you know looking at all of that I'm excited to then take even the seaweed and say okay what are we doing with the seaweed then oh here we are we have these chairs that we made out of the seaweed or you know look at this and so it's a big vision but hoping that the funding will align

and I'll be able to build this Aquaculture Innovation Center, which is really what I wanted to do from the beginning when I bought the restaurant in 2018, was to have it be a Mecca for Seafood. learning center, to learn about offshore aquaculture, to learn about ropeless gear for lobster and crab. farming. You know, what's that about and how can we teach? And we do have a manufacturing division in Mana, Mana Systems, that will be making the equipment.

so also to show these are different types of the equipment for the oyster farming The equipment for the oyster farming, the Aquafort IMTA platforms for farming near shore and offshore, and also the storm safe submersible net pens. which are the larger submersible pens we plan to use in the open ocean. And to work with that equipment to integrate robotics and this new technology that rolls out every year.

you new tools that can be added to the equipment, whether it's automated feed or nanobubbles or different types of materials that can be used. We can't help but look at all of that at the same time. Okay, so you're really vertically integrating, but you're also opening the technology.

that you're developing to vertically integrate yourself and you're offering it to others which I think makes sense to if you're going to affect change and have a sustainable business model then That does make sense.

I do want to go back to the question of how do people get started But in terms of what this looks like or will look like, someone can go to your restaurant, they'll scan the QR code, they'll see the full provenance of where the produce on the menu, the seafood, the meats, the vegetables that come from, and there'll be a story that can go beyond whatever a waiter can tell them in a few minutes. If someone runs an oyster farm and they like the sound of what you've described,

Beyond just getting in touch with you, what's the sort of process that you recommend to start to be able to implement traceability? Because it's not a simple thing, is it? It's not a simple thing. I would recommend that they call me and get on the waiting list.

We're supporting the first species onto the platform by covering the cost for their pilot video. So there's an opportunity, whoever the first... uh you know steelhead farmer might be we would cover that right so that's kind of fun in the beginning um but To get on now, they can start by integrating their farm with tools like the carbon sequestration tracker that NOAA has released.

It's a free tool. All oyster farmers can use it and it calculates the ecosystem services those oysters are performing. so just so it's already there and when we come in we just link it onto the platform that kind of thing keeping their records they're already tagging product I just really get ready. I think that it's going to be a big movement really through the restaurants because

This liability issue is really front and center with the restaurants. Inside Edition just did a an expose in New York City where They went from seafood restaurant to seafood restaurant, I think they did about 10, where they looked at the menu, they said, oh, you're saying that this is this, and they tested it, they sent it to the lab. half of them were misrepresenting. And it's not necessarily the restaurants that know.

But the buck is going to stop with them because they have the responsibility of presenting the product to the consumers. And when they say, we're sourcing locally. They then have to source locally. And how do they source locally? For sure. They either go and catch it themselves or they go down to the dock and make sure that it's just come in that day, really, or they have to trust their distributor. Yeah, yeah. So that becomes an issue. Yes, I

Well, I commend what you're doing. I think it's the way things are going. The JTC24 committee, which is work, is basically the European Union standard for digital product passport. And that's got the weight of law behind it. So there's going to be enforcement and requirements for the European Union. That's a standard that's going to spread. beyond Europe because it applies to everyone that's supplying Europe and also a lot of the countries that follow Europe through the UN and so forth.

I think this is definitely the way to go and to me the secret is to figure out how can you do the right thing but also get efficiencies, save money, make money at the same time and I think what you've outlined with telling the story behind a product which allows you to command a premium is an important part of that.

well i can't believe it we've almost consumed all our time but is there anything that i should have asked you that i didn't ask you about what you're doing in this space or or have we capture that I think it's really important. that everyone understand why it's so important to farm in the ocean and what the scope is of what we're proposing and what can be accomplished in such a small area. For example,

we can use one-tenth of one percent of our exclusive economic zone. One-tenth of one percent. And in that one-tenth of one percent, we can grow an amount equal to the total annual wild catch. one tenth of one percent right yeah so we've got a huge opportunity for growth uh and where we may be running out of space and land and uh

running short on inputs and all that sort of thing in other spaces then we've got an opportunity here. The other thing I think is really important is that fish is such an efficient protein to grow. more efficient in that it can convert one pound of feed or one and a half pounds of feed to a pound of biomass.

Now when you're farming chicken or pork, meat that can go up to eight to ten pounds of feed for a pound of beef and the scales down through beef and chicken etc but I think that to be able to have that efficient biomass conversion is a big part of ocean farming and fish are just natural.

convert they're so healthy they're so good for you there's and if you feed them the right products you know the right feed I don't want to say organic, but natural, you know, with some of the new compositions that are coming up between fly larvae or waste. seafood waste products that can be used. It's all about this circular economy and doing the most efficient job in bringing that biomass to the market. Fish don't, it won't, doesn't use any water.

We did a study and we found that we can power the farms with wave energy. So we can't use fuel. We can look at electric vessels to bring our feed out and bring our harvest in. and be more efficient in these ways. So I think when you think about the future and all the people that are going to need protein seafood has to be a big part of it and that one tenth of one percent is so important to understand the scope

You know, we're not looking to fill the federal waters with fish farms. It's a small footprint, and it's a great production amount, and let's get going with it. EOS is all I could say. It's time. It's overdue. I agree.

So Donna, one of my favorite parts of the show is where we ask our guests for three songs that have meaning to them. What three songs did you choose? Well, I have to first thank you for the heads up on this. I wouldn't have liked being put on the spot, but I have thought about it. And my selections are, my first choice is Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. I think it's really important to base our lives. Giving thanks.

to god and i think it's a it's a big part of my life and my faith and really the faith that has driven the development of my company so it's a big part for holiday i know it kind of about love and that's not but for me it's about spirituality and giving thanks

Oh, I'm racking my brains. I was just watching a clip on Facebook of someone being asked this question on a late night talk show and they they chose the same song some celebrity it's going to come to me but anyway you're not alone other people think that's a really good song too It is. Leonard Cohen, very talented. Yeah, rest in peace. Okay, good. Great start. What's song number two? So number two is a little off the beaten track. There was an old band called Air Supply.

Oh, I remember them. I don't know if you remember them. I do, yeah. They sang a song, Hold Your Head Up. I think it really goes a long way to drive perseverance. powering through. which has been a really big part for MANA in waiting for the permits and getting through all the opposition and really persevering, and that's what we do. So air supply, hold your head up.

Yeah, a lot of people have motivational songs that they listen to before going into meetings, but I think the motivation that enables an entrepreneur to... push through setbacks is is really appropriate especially for this show where we're dealing with cutting-edge technology and going places no person has gone before so very good Thank you. And my final song is also digging deep into the barrel. It's a Carole King song from back in the day. I may remember a tapestry. Yes.

amazing album tapestry for me is about the circular economy but really it's about how everything is interwoven and you know for me that's really my life and The fact that where I am now with developing this company and all the people that I have met over the last 10 years to make it happen where now we have a pretty strong woven web. and we're ready to lead in ocean mariculture in the U.S. and really in supply chain technology also throughout the world. Tapestry. Beautiful song.

Yeah, I've got it in my record collection behind me. It is an amazing record, so I'm there with you. Wonderful. Well, Donna, thanks so much for some inspiring music choices, and thanks very much for appearing on the show. Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity. Thanks.

Okay, that was the conversation with Donna. Thanks very much for sticking to the end. You're unusual and tremendously valued for doing that. I do want to thank Williot for their continued sponsorship of They underwrite the cost of the editing, which is done by Aaron Hammack, who has immense stamina and skill. So thanks to Aaron for doing that. Thanks to Sierra Walden of Williott. the person that helps to push out the episodes on LinkedIn and, uh, without website.

Lastly, what have I been listening to as I've been working since we last spoke? Well, I've been going back to the world of CDs and there's a Dr. Martin music sample is an amazing cd it's probably really difficult together if you can listen to it online i have been listening to it in form and it's got an interesting selection of groups. Primal group called Solo Coughing.

called Ripstop which is really really cool. This CD is particularly interesting to me. It came out I think around about 1990 and it includes an Earthlink subscription for free 15 days of dial-up internet access so that's really back to those good old days when you had to buy special hardware and software and find a that had lots of phone lines that could take our connections. So anyway, from me until next time enjoy the and be safe. How would you spend 200 million pounds?

I'm Sorrel and I'm back for season two of the insanely lavish rich beyond my wildest dreams podcast where hilarious guests get their hands on an imaginary 200 million pound jackpot on Euro millions from the national lock. I would buy tickets to go and see Backstreet Boys in this fair. I'd buy this fair. What are we talking about? The bougier, the better. Time to do a lunatic. It's Monday. Try to buy Yorah! So get ready for Confetti Cannons. Champagne. Giant Czech.

and some of the most outrageous ways a person could possibly spend a 200 million pound fortune. Jacuzzi karaoke. Jacuzzi karaoke. You can get that Euromillions feeling every Friday by searching for Rich Beyond My Wildest Dreams on all podcasting apps. YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Since when did pride in your country become prejudice? Our thoughts exactly. The Telegraph. We speak your mind.