About BlueBurn
Using algae is as old as humans farming the land. But the industry has not developed in the same way. Only recently, and mainly due to the need for more sustainable and climate change resilient ingredients, have companies from all industries been forced to explore alternatives.
Algae is a very promising alternative. To name a few positive points: it is very versatile, it can be used in almost any industry for multiple applications, it can be farmed in an environmentally sound way, it does not need potable water, and it does not compete with food production.
It is hard to mention negative points about algae. But the key points are price, consistency in quality, and availability.
Still, it is strange that this too good to be true resource is only a fraction of the value of today's commodity markets.
Algae usage and production are gaining momentum and growing by double digits per year. More and more industries see the potential and explore algae as an ingredient, either to replace or enhance their products.
Looking at research papers from the last two decades, we see that algae has the potential to become a prominent player in the commodity market: prices can go down to compete with current alternatives, and volumes can be achieved that meet demand.
To achieve this, a lot is needed.
BlueBurn's goal is to enable and accelerate the algae economy.
The method is collective impact: building a large network, understanding the needs of the demand side and what is potentially available, and analysing the data. Together they show where the opportunities actually are, which parties need to be in the same room, and which projects are worth starting and staying with.
BlueBurn is Felix Ghyczy's advisory practice in the algae and seaweed trade, run from Amsterdam.
Felix believes algae can do real work towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the European Green Deal. Algae is a decades old industry that is still immature, mostly managed in an unprofessional and inefficient way throughout the whole supply chain, from farmers to processors.
Why do we focus on understanding the demand side?
Most stakeholders in the algae ecosystem, like farmers, researchers and algae associations, focus on:
- yield per hectare
- survival rates
- drying cost
- seedling quality
- a better line design
- etc.
That work is very important, and helps the industry to understand the production side. Information on the buyer is often missing.
Starting a business cannot be done without understanding the client. This starts with the questions: who is my client, and what does my ideal client look like? Secondly, you want to know: what problem does my client have, and why is my product a solution? Little research and work is performed on these demand side questions.
BlueBurn fills that gap. We try to understand what the market is looking for, and translate it into something a farm can act on.
Five parties who rarely sit in the same room, with BlueBurn in the middle
Collective impact
Felix works from the collective impact model. A problem this size is not solved by one organisation doing its own part well. It is solved when parties from different sectors agree on a common agenda, measure the same things, reinforce each other's work instead of duplicating it, and keep talking. What makes that possible is a backbone: someone whose actual job is the coordination.
Algae has no backbone. Everyone holds one piece and nobody holds the middle. That is the position BlueBurn takes, and it is why the work runs across all five parties rather than sitting on one side of the table.
Philip Pienkos, microalgae
One of the more experienced microalgae scientists, and the reason we can take a microalgae question seriously rather than politely.
Business development and strategic advisory
For startups, investors and public bodies deciding where algae fits over the next several years and where it does not. They all need the same answer before they commit: is the demand real, at what specification, at what price. We can answer it because we sit between the five parties who each hold one piece of it and rarely speak to each other.
Investor introductions happen inside this work, once the demand side of the story is strong enough to survive scrutiny. That order matters. Nobody should be raising on a market that has not yet said what it wants.
Better to tell you there is nothing here for you than to take a fee for finding that out slowly.