Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us again and
Speaker 1: the Seafood Matters Today I'm joined by Alexandra lieper CEO
Speaker 1: of the Iceland Ocean Cluster, a well an organization has
Speaker 1: become well known for pushing the concept one hundred percent fish. Alexandra,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Seafood Matters.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1: Jan Thank you, Alexandra. We'll just get straight into it.
Speaker 1: If just to set the scene, what problem was the
Speaker 1: Ocean Cluster originally trying to solve and how much of
Speaker 1: that problem still exists today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the we're actually fifteen years old this year,
Speaker 2: the Iceland Ocean Cluster, and it was a founded originally
Speaker 2: too well address one of the biggest challenges that we
Speaker 2: see in the fisheries industry in Iceland and in fact
Speaker 2: one that we now see around the world as well,
Speaker 2: and that was historically the fisheries sector or these large
Speaker 2: commercial scale companies they were fishing in the same waters
Speaker 2: as one another. They were you know, oftentimes it's a
Speaker 2: small country, so even with offices in the same building
Speaker 2: facing many of the same challenges, but they were not
Speaker 2: in dialogue or in collaboration with one another. So it
Speaker 2: was part of the problem. And at the same time
Speaker 2: you had these entrepreneurs that had really great ideas to
Speaker 2: solve some of the fishery sector's key challenges and innovations
Speaker 2: and technology they wanted to test and try, but they
Speaker 2: hadn't spoken to the fishery sector. They didn't they hadn't
Speaker 2: connected with the industry, and they were working. I was
Speaker 2: thinking of it as working secret squirrel style and their
Speaker 2: their home offices or and their guaragees on their innovation
Speaker 2: that was going to change the industry. And also there
Speaker 2: was all this wealth of research data being collected in
Speaker 2: Eisen by the universities and by the Marina Freshwater Research Institute,
Speaker 2: and a lot of this data just wasn't reaching either
Speaker 2: of those groups effectively to be able to really provide
Speaker 2: valuable information. So the House, the Ocean Pluster House where
Speaker 2: our offices are based, and the Cluster itself as a
Speaker 2: concept came together really to invite all these different groups,
Speaker 2: the fisheries, the innovators, the research community into one space
Speaker 2: to bring together, to give them an opportunity in a
Speaker 2: neutral EKE system, to find ways to collaborate, to connect
Speaker 2: in many cases, to meet each other for the first time.
Speaker 2: And that really particularly even in a small country like
Speaker 2: this where you would think everyone knows everyone, but they
Speaker 2: often aren't speaking about, you know, their technologies or their work.
Speaker 2: So it was really a way to bring everyone together
Speaker 2: really at its heart, so to really grow innovation, grow
Speaker 2: solutions to secred challenges, particularly again in a country where
Speaker 2: fisheries is such a big part of the culture, the economy,
Speaker 2: the entire life there, and I think in Iceland that
Speaker 2: is really very much a growing ecosystem. We have more
Speaker 2: people coming through the doors every day our house that's requests.
Speaker 2: The house where we're based, it's about three thousand square
Speaker 2: meters and we have about seventy so seven zero companies
Speaker 2: today living in house with us, from brand new startup
Speaker 2: high school students with a good idea that they want
Speaker 2: to test out and they need a bit of an
Speaker 2: incubation and home all the way through to huge international
Speaker 2: companies like JBT MATEL, the biggest in the world for
Speaker 2: fish processing equipment, and we're actually all of our offices
Speaker 2: are full. So I would say that this is something
Speaker 2: that's really a challenge that has been quite addressed in
Speaker 2: Iceland if we continue to eat system as we have.
Speaker 2: But I would say every new place we go around
Speaker 2: the world, we do see this, this siloing of the
Speaker 2: industry and the research and the innovation community, and this
Speaker 2: I would say being a challenge we see everywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but one which we very much hope we can help
Speaker 2: address through this cluster thinking.
Speaker 1: You know, when you say doing it in Iceland, is
Speaker 1: Iceland I can't think of in my team, but is
Speaker 1: Iceland not for its multi specie facially this could be
Speaker 1: done with a variety of species other than.
Speaker 2: Just say Gord, yeah, I mean so, I would say
Speaker 2: it's not a hugely diverse, specially in terms of I
Speaker 2: think comparing to some of the locations where we were
Speaker 2: even compared to to Scotland and where we work a
Speaker 2: lot in the US and the specific but there are
Speaker 2: you know, there are three or four main dimersal species
Speaker 2: called haddock link and also redfish, as well as no
Speaker 2: small logics. But I wouldn't say I would say it's
Speaker 2: a a few species but large volumes. So this is
Speaker 2: something that has definitely helped trigger some of these fish
Speaker 2: value chains in a in a way that might be
Speaker 2: different if you had many species in a very fragmented ecosystem.
Speaker 1: Okay, on one hundred percent fish concept. You've been closely
Speaker 1: associated with this idea of full utilization using one hundred
Speaker 1: percent of How close are we really to that and
Speaker 1: practice and an adated the operations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a really good question, because really
Speaker 2: the goal is zero waste, using every part of the
Speaker 2: seafood that we catch and farm to create value and
Speaker 2: sustainable value as well. And with the anantic cod in Iceland,
Speaker 2: so that's very much like what we think of as
Speaker 2: the model species, because that's where at least our work
Speaker 2: in Iceland focused at started in the industry had already
Speaker 2: started to move towards. And we estimate that for Atlantic
Speaker 2: cod we've gone from using about forty five percent of
Speaker 2: the Atlantic cod, which is primarily just the pilate itself,
Speaker 2: all the way through to over ninety percent now for
Speaker 2: the cod and its It's similar for other whitefish species.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not perfect. I think there's certainly more
Speaker 2: that we could be doing, but I think it's quite
Speaker 2: interesting now when we look at growing seafood sectors on
Speaker 2: the icelandic market, for example, are is our fastest growing
Speaker 2: food production sector here. We have about sixty thousand tons
Speaker 2: if people take of vannd Atlantic salmon being produced with
Speaker 2: a lot more plans in the next five to ten
Speaker 2: years with lots of land based facilities being built. And
Speaker 2: right now we don't have a lot of processing of
Speaker 2: salmon in country, but it will be the case that
Speaker 2: there will be more and more opportunity to create value
Speaker 2: instead of waste size streams from salmon. So I say,
Speaker 2: that's something that's developing and isn't there yet. And I'm
Speaker 2: just going to pause for a second. My emails are
Speaker 2: popping up. Are you hearing that sound on your side?
Speaker 1: Nope?
Speaker 2: Okay, perfect, So I want to check thank you.
Speaker 1: I don't think and I don't think it would be
Speaker 1: picked up, but I'm certainly not picking it up. I
Speaker 1: wasn't aware of that.
Speaker 2: I think if you're not hearing it, then that's what
Speaker 2: I double before.
Speaker 1: I thank you for thank you. If I was the
Speaker 1: city at the same time, Alexandra, I just meant to
Speaker 1: mention to you before we started recording. Don't worry about this.
Speaker 1: I can cut this out. But my wife was getting
Speaker 1: a telephone appointment with her doctor today and she wasn't
Speaker 1: in and he's calling. She's calling them her back after
Speaker 1: and she says that she can't give a time after one.
Speaker 1: If she does and I hear it, I might say, right,
Speaker 1: we ask we go through that point again if we're
Speaker 1: in the middle or something. If you don't mind, absolutely
Speaker 1: no problem.
Speaker 2: I've got my phone on do not disturb and everything
Speaker 2: as well, so on my side hopefully that won't be
Speaker 2: the case. And I've actually locked myself in a beating room.
Speaker 1: On the earlier point, I feel it'd be interesting in
Speaker 1: your view in Iceland, but my experience of working closely
Speaker 1: with Iceland and been there many times, which I have
Speaker 1: to say I loved they were way way ahead of
Speaker 1: the UK and you probably Europe with the concept. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying they were taking one hundred percent, using one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of bets, but they were certainly using a
Speaker 1: lot more than than we were. Yeah, do you feel
Speaker 1: that's the case You more or less said that earlier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think certainly from what I've seen that I
Speaker 2: spend a lot of time going around processing facilities around
Speaker 2: the world. That's a sa pack of my job. I
Speaker 2: get to see a lot of what this looks like
Speaker 2: in different countries with different species, and I think is
Speaker 2: quite unique in a lot of factors that have, I say,
Speaker 2: allow it to be actually not just in the secret sector,
Speaker 2: but in a number of sectors. It allows it to
Speaker 2: be a bit of a model ecosystem because you know,
Speaker 2: we have a small population with about four hundred thousands people.
Speaker 2: Now we have the fisheries themselves, as you mentioned, you know,
Speaker 2: they're they're few species, their high in volume. There's because
Speaker 2: of the the fact that they're in general quite high
Speaker 2: value fish and we have a few people. That has
Speaker 2: meant there's been a lot of investment in automation and
Speaker 2: kind of equipment to make those businesses make more sense
Speaker 2: than perhaps it would have driven in other countries where
Speaker 2: there's a lot more labor available. I think the uniqueness
Speaker 2: of being an island and having to do a lot
Speaker 2: of this in far away from the rest of the
Speaker 2: world has meant it's been a good place to start
Speaker 2: building out those one fish value chains, particularly with the
Speaker 2: CODs where a lot of it is landed in a
Speaker 2: couple of large scale locations. There's quite a lot of
Speaker 2: vertical integration too, so the fisheries owned the vessel, owned
Speaker 2: the processing facility, and then have been able to invest
Speaker 2: in even like marine collagen factories. So there's this kind
Speaker 2: of connectivity along the supply chain, which I think has
Speaker 2: been easier to do here in a way because of
Speaker 2: the way that the ecsystem is set up. But saying that,
Speaker 2: I would say the fisheries sector themselves, the industry have
Speaker 2: been very willing to test, invest in, and collaborate with
Speaker 2: some of these innovations in order to you know, improve
Speaker 2: their margins. They've been very open to that. Like for example,
Speaker 2: before we started recording, I mentioned we had a visit
Speaker 2: last week from the EU Commissioner of Fisheries and Oceans
Speaker 2: and this was really interesting because we had a lot
Speaker 2: of the companies that are in house showcase and saying
Speaker 2: what they're doing, and many of them, of course are
Speaker 2: with technologies and innovations this fishing industry, and those companies
Speaker 2: were talking about how valuable and important to their development
Speaker 2: the openness of the fisheries industry has been here to
Speaker 2: what they're doing. Son is a unique model ecosystem that
Speaker 2: can you can test things out so then they can
Speaker 2: start to be deployed elsewhere and adapted elsewhere. So I
Speaker 2: would say it is ahead to kind of answer your question,
Speaker 2: it's ahead in fish processing and value creation for sure.
Speaker 1: Sounds very exciting. Where is the biggest way is still
Speaker 1: happening in the secret chain today? And why hasn't it
Speaker 1: been fixed?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is weird. We think about this
Speaker 2: a lot. There was some really interesting and useful data
Speaker 2: that came out of World Economic Forum in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four and it takes this globe picture of seafood loss
Speaker 2: and waste and what it highlights that wherever you are
Speaker 2: in the world, the greater proportion of that seafood loss
Speaker 2: and waste. It showed it was happening at that processing
Speaker 2: on land stage of the supply chain, so once the
Speaker 2: fisher landed, and then that processing where if it's being headed, gutted, skins,
Speaker 2: et cetera. So that's that was very interesting data to
Speaker 2: see because it kind of really reflected what had been
Speaker 2: the case in Iceland too and where those intubation interventions
Speaker 2: around one hundred percent fish had been developed from that
Speaker 2: processing on land. There is, of course, when we talk
Speaker 2: a lot about when we're in the UK and other
Speaker 2: locations too, there is a lot of cases where you
Speaker 2: know fish are headed and gutted at sea, and that
Speaker 2: that biomass, that potentially valuable materials already lost at sea
Speaker 2: before it even reaches that on land processing. But I
Speaker 2: would say those are the from that data set as
Speaker 2: also not just my anecdotal opinion, but this large collection
Speaker 2: of information really sure that that's where it's it's happening
Speaker 2: in its largest proportion, which is super interesting because that's
Speaker 2: also when it's accessible. Yeah, and you asked, why is
Speaker 2: that happening or why is it still that the case? Well,
Speaker 2: and I think that's quite a complicated question because there
Speaker 2: are quite a lot of reasons. And I think fisheries
Speaker 2: and fish processing, you know, they're focused on there in general,
Speaker 2: the primary product, getting a high quality product to market,
Speaker 2: and you know, they have their very established supply chain relationships,
Speaker 2: they have you know, the way things are done and
Speaker 2: set up, and there is it. I think it can
Speaker 2: be very challenging financially, culturally, etc. To make changes in
Speaker 2: a very established and mature ecosystem. So I think there's
Speaker 2: partly there's an element of that, like changing something when
Speaker 2: it's already working pretty well. It is a challenge. I
Speaker 2: think also one of the biggest challenges we see around
Speaker 2: the world actually is that it's it's very difficult to
Speaker 2: justify the the space, the time the cost, the labor
Speaker 2: of separating different materials, storing different materials like right at
Speaker 2: the right kind of handling quality, or even transporting them.
Speaker 2: If there isn't the connectivity or the uptaker that next
Speaker 2: step in the value chain off someone actually wants to
Speaker 2: pay money for that material and those relationships and partnerships
Speaker 2: are not in place, or those infrastructures are not in place.
Speaker 2: I think these so I spend a lot of my
Speaker 2: time thinking about innovation, but actually these kind of more
Speaker 2: fundamental things are I think, what are those big hurdles
Speaker 2: for more utilization to be happening, particularly at that persons
Speaker 2: on that stage and even on the story and they're
Speaker 2: bringing to land on the vessels.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that, I would say, Alexandra, that's a
Speaker 1: good thing about what you've doing there and with the cluster,
Speaker 1: and I take it that there's speaking to lots of
Speaker 1: different people, and I think that is so important because
Speaker 1: I'm even you know, a small project like I had
Speaker 1: a seafood restaurant for twenty years and right in far
Speaker 1: north of Scotland. Now small project, small family run business.
Speaker 1: My wife is a front of the house. I was
Speaker 1: looking after the kitchen and I thought it was fascinating
Speaker 1: that what carried me I was no, I was no chef. Yes,
Speaker 1: I went to I went to college. The local college
Speaker 1: is a fifty two when I was fifty two, so
Speaker 1: you could say a mature student, okay. But and it
Speaker 1: was fascinating just by talking to different people. There was
Speaker 1: Japanese people involved in a joint venture this way in
Speaker 1: a factory, and things that we know just through a
Speaker 1: very small operation. So we get people talking together. I
Speaker 1: think it's just can't be anything but good for the industry.
Speaker 1: The Japanese people, we discovered fish liver, like a monkfish
Speaker 1: liver and stuff like that. That's an absolute delicacy in Japan.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And we had a group in Dutch people and they
Speaker 1: took the Norwegians and one of them is from Lafotin
Speaker 1: and here we learn that are almost like a national
Speaker 1: dish in La Fortin. There's a cord head and I'm
Speaker 1: saying that the guy is as well. They're very conservative.
Speaker 1: The people in UK, they're not really adventurous, he says. Look,
Speaker 1: he says, as a vacant feast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's interesting you touch on that. I totally agree.
Speaker 2: Everything is relationships and partnerships, and I think having conversations
Speaker 2: with people that you wouldn't have had a conversations with
Speaker 2: and you discover a new way to look at something.
Speaker 2: But also I think the thing you just touched on
Speaker 2: there with La Fulton as well is the importance of storytelling.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to say use the word marketing, but like,
Speaker 2: how do you tell something and how do you tell
Speaker 2: people it's exciting or that they should be interested in it.
Speaker 2: I think these are two super powerful things in how
Speaker 2: do we use more of us eafood and create more
Speaker 2: value from what we do catch?
Speaker 1: And also discovered the thaie in Thailand, you know the
Speaker 1: bone of the particularly salmon when after they're filleted, the
Speaker 1: bone that's left Thailand's they are desperate for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then in Spain, the north of Spain, the bass
Speaker 1: reads and the tradition and they use the cheeks and
Speaker 1: the tongues of the cord. Absolutely so yeah. And here
Speaker 1: in our recent podcast with guys in the retail sector
Speaker 1: of fishing in industry in the UK haiden cutting and
Speaker 1: I thought it was fantastic. You know the collar just
Speaker 1: at the top of the fillet of the where the
Speaker 1: gills with the cord he class that does a chicken
Speaker 1: wing of the sea. I love it.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes what we call things and how we
Speaker 2: particularly find in the way that different cultures and in
Speaker 2: different countries can work with different parts of the fish.
Speaker 2: It opens up a whole new piece that there's a
Speaker 2: wonderful company and they call Regal Springs that they're primarily
Speaker 2: the tea farming, but there they they've kind of reimagined
Speaker 2: their whole product departments. Obviously the filler of the tilapia
Speaker 2: is the main one that originally was interest to the market,
Speaker 2: but they've renamed everything else. For example, there as the
Speaker 2: colors as well as natural additions, so there are these
Speaker 2: other parts of the fish that are also tasty. It's
Speaker 2: just like how do you use them? And I think
Speaker 2: you mentioned your background as a chef, Like chefs and
Speaker 2: people that can be innovative with food are such an
Speaker 2: important part of the conversation. I've had an amazing like
Speaker 2: I say, one fish meals well. I like fish sausages
Speaker 2: for example, it's a big thing which had them in Iceland.
Speaker 2: They also in the Great Lakes. The delicious like all
Speaker 2: these kind of value add ways of using material that
Speaker 2: I mean also we're actually getting the primary nutrition. There's
Speaker 2: this really cool company in Finland, Halia that are working
Speaker 2: with the cutoffs primarily from the trap sector of Finland
Speaker 2: and essentially reprocessing them into a high quality product that's
Speaker 2: ready to sell and to cook with. So it's just, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of very cool ways to reimagine how
Speaker 2: we eat nasty food.
Speaker 1: Oh, some younger son lives in Australia and we've been
Speaker 1: there visiting her and fish sausage is great in Australia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, delicious and it's healthy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, definitely. I used the when I had the
Speaker 1: project this seafood restaurant. I used the belly of maybe
Speaker 1: obviously bigger fish like a cord or and catfish as well,
Speaker 1: or wolffish as some people call it, and maybe make
Speaker 1: it into gushans or say I used to call it.
Speaker 1: I used to put it in the menu fish fingers
Speaker 1: and then brackets, not captain bird'seye. Now I will admit
Speaker 1: that I wasn't a newer slogan one hundred percent of
Speaker 1: the fish. I would say the fish finger was one
Speaker 1: hundred percent fish exactly.
Speaker 2: I think it's more and more chefs I think exploring
Speaker 2: this as well, because they're like scale to tail menus.
Speaker 2: We haven't mentioned it yet, but we have the sister
Speaker 2: ocean clusters around the world that we helped get started
Speaker 2: to kind of replicate what we're doing, and particularly those
Speaker 2: in Oregon and in the Great Lakes have been very
Speaker 2: active in teaming up with chefs that have been putting
Speaker 2: together these amazing menus of you know, every part of
Speaker 2: for example, the belly and put these into like the
Speaker 2: soft like bow buns like it's spilling or I just
Speaker 2: really beautiful ways to present these foods as well. So
Speaker 2: it's really it becomes gourmet and interesting and yeah, it's
Speaker 2: really cool to see what I'm a terrible cooker, I've said,
Speaker 2: my partner does all the cooking signs. It's always very
Speaker 2: pleasantly surprised how much lovely food I get to eat.
Speaker 1: I had some catfishlast night, and I took the belly
Speaker 1: and I made a cut in thin strips, and I
Speaker 1: was just sending a photograph of it to the skipper
Speaker 1: who I got the catfish from, and as I was saying, look,
Speaker 1: when you think of it the fish, that what the
Speaker 1: cart the cartfish, or we call it cartfish and Wolffish
Speaker 1: in Iceland.
Speaker 2: Or yes, technically stainbyat is a stone bi oh yeah right.
Speaker 1: Yeah steinb exakly right, it's the same in Pharoh the
Speaker 1: way I described the skipper because he's a Scottish fisherman,
Speaker 1: it's a headache or nothing as far as he's And
Speaker 1: he says to me, well this is you're sort of
Speaker 1: no wasting anything jump And I said, well, look you
Speaker 1: just think of it. Look at what the catfish diet
Speaker 1: is a it's all the shellfish that we pay a
Speaker 1: fortune for so living, that's life, So it can't be
Speaker 1: anything else but but delicious. So it's full utilization, commercially
Speaker 1: driven or are we still leaning on sustainable at the
Speaker 1: inaratives to push it forward.
Speaker 2: This is a really good question because particularly the way
Speaker 2: that we think about it here, if it's not if
Speaker 2: a solution or a change to a business, it's only
Speaker 2: done for sustainability, and it doesn't make business sense or
Speaker 2: investment case sense, then it's not going to be it's
Speaker 2: not going to be sustainable, So it's not for the
Speaker 2: companies won't be able to continue to do it, or
Speaker 2: they'll do it and struggle, or it will be kind
Speaker 2: of a secondary part of their activities that they do,
Speaker 2: because you know, there's spetification boxes that they have to tick.
Speaker 2: And this is not to downtock sustainability at all. Stendbility
Speaker 2: is extremely important in terms of the environmental side of it,
Speaker 2: but it has to go hand in hand with what
Speaker 2: makes business sense. So I would say certainly the work
Speaker 2: that we do in the way that the industry and
Speaker 2: islands has evolved, and the work that we're now doing
Speaker 2: with other groups around the world, our focus is really
Speaker 2: on well, maybe take you a little bit through the
Speaker 2: process of how we explore it, because I think that
Speaker 2: kind of addresses that as well, because we where we
Speaker 2: focus on the sustainability pieces that when we're working with
Speaker 2: fisheries or companies, we are focusing on those fisheries that
Speaker 2: are you know, sustainably managed, are MSc certified or similar,
Speaker 2: although we're trying to find ways to support where they're
Speaker 2: not as well now. But it's working with these fissueries
Speaker 2: and then looking at okay, what volumes of what species
Speaker 2: and what parts of the fish are where and how
Speaker 2: they handle and what is it like now, and then
Speaker 2: we kind of dive directly into a Okay, well, what
Speaker 2: is the nutritional and functional properties of each of those
Speaker 2: parts of the fish, and based on those functional properties,
Speaker 2: what potential products actually make market sense? What is the
Speaker 2: business case of this? What does the return and investment
Speaker 2: look like? Okay, then that that highlights what is the
Speaker 2: root of what are the products that can be developed,
Speaker 2: and I mean the focus and the priority of the
Speaker 2: types of value in the scale of those businesses and
Speaker 2: the even the types of products that are interesting to create.
Speaker 2: While it's all sustainable because it's finding ways to not
Speaker 2: lose a waste any part of our seafood, that it's
Speaker 2: making it all that it's rooted in in business and
Speaker 2: investment case sense, because if you just come in with
Speaker 2: a sustainability solution, then it becomes something that the companies
Speaker 2: do and maybe emptying a bit in my opinion he now,
Speaker 2: but something that the companies do because they have to do,
Speaker 2: not because it actually is improving their margins or in
Speaker 2: improving their their resilience in a time of crisis. So
Speaker 2: I think it's it's got to be good for the
Speaker 2: bottom line as well as a sustainability. That's very much
Speaker 2: a philosophy with I'm fish.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree with you are more there, Alexandra, and
Speaker 1: everything you said there about the margins and profitability in that,
Speaker 1: and it just puts my makes me think again. Good
Speaker 1: back to this small project with the restaurant. I was
Speaker 1: of the mind I was using the belly flaps, the collars,
Speaker 1: every every part, and I've as far as I was concerned,
Speaker 1: I just felt, look, I'm my business. I'm a small
Speaker 1: business here. I've bought this fish, so why throw a
Speaker 1: lot of it, don't we? If I can, if I
Speaker 1: can return and get a return on as much of
Speaker 1: it as.
Speaker 2: I can, Absolutely, and I think it's it was maybe
Speaker 2: a bit surprising because I've been at the Ocean Cluster
Speaker 2: now for just over five years, and I think it
Speaker 2: was quite surprising to me to start with it. Actually
Speaker 2: it was entrepreneurs and business finance minded people that were
Speaker 2: at the beginning had come to the cluster and while asking, Okay,
Speaker 2: well we know all this Colton Haddocks skin is going
Speaker 2: to landfill, that's potential value lost, what could we do
Speaker 2: with it? Wasn't a case of the primary thought wasn't
Speaker 2: all while it's breaking down in land film producing methane
Speaker 2: and this is a greenhouse gas. So it's a problem
Speaker 2: that we should deal with. It's like, here's the opportunity.
Speaker 2: So we really do view everything through the lens of
Speaker 2: what's the opportunity, and yeah, just so that it sticks
Speaker 2: and companies once they see the benefit of doing it.
Speaker 2: The also the numbers in a proper you know, business
Speaker 2: investment case, because I think that's also a challenge of like, oh, hey, well,
Speaker 2: here's the potential value could be creating. And to go
Speaker 2: from you know, side streams that are going to landfill
Speaker 2: or you know being taken away and even being paid
Speaker 2: to be recycled to actually a valuable product on the market.
Speaker 2: There's a you know, there is investment, there is withn
Speaker 2: on investment time, there is steps that need to be taken,
Speaker 2: and there is the right timing, there is the right
Speaker 2: type of product of development. So I think that this
Speaker 2: is such a key part of that that development as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, indeed, another thing I feel quite strongly about myself.
Speaker 1: As you'll see delegations some organizations, maybe chefs organizations or
Speaker 1: or the like of that they'll arrange for the delegation
Speaker 1: to go just say, for example, here Peterhead is a
Speaker 1: big market, the chef organization arrange for chefs to get
Speaker 1: to the fish market. And I'm not knocking it. I
Speaker 1: think great, But I just feel with things like that,
Speaker 1: it should be taken further. And I would say, personally,
Speaker 1: let's say I would take it a stage further and say,
Speaker 1: don't stop in the fish market. Get the chefs on
Speaker 1: board the boats talking to the fishermen, and get the
Speaker 1: fishermen into the kitchen and watch the chef. And I
Speaker 1: feel there's so much the chef could look at what
Speaker 1: maybe some of the things the crew are doing on board.
Speaker 1: As a holes ants come on board and they're working
Speaker 1: on the fish. The chef could say, oh, look at that,
Speaker 1: what are you doing with that? I could use that,
Speaker 1: or I would maybe there's throwing it away or it's
Speaker 1: going to I could tell you another story about the
Speaker 1: lobster be it. And then when the fisherman is in
Speaker 1: the kitchen watching the chef doing something, you could say, well,
Speaker 1: we cut another fish that I think maybe you want
Speaker 1: to try with that dish.
Speaker 2: I think that do you feel that I love that idea. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I had a pleasure to visit Peter Heead recently. It's
Speaker 2: it's nice to have it in my mind while you're
Speaker 2: talking about it, and it's yeah, I think this would
Speaker 2: be such a wonderful way. It's like, oh, if you
Speaker 2: handle this sightly definitely on board, I could you know,
Speaker 2: put it in this dish in this way or Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting to hear the parallels of this because
Speaker 2: there is a Scottish ocean cluster being built out by
Speaker 2: CPI Scotland doing amazing stuff and we actually the reason
Speaker 2: that I was with them, they ran work workshops. For
Speaker 2: example in phraser Rome, we visited Ptered that was one
Speaker 2: of the stops of these workshops to really understand what
Speaker 2: could the cluster be doing to support one hundred percent
Speaker 2: fish in the white PA sector, what was needed by
Speaker 2: the industry and the researchers. In these workshops, there was
Speaker 2: one in Auburn, there was one in Glasgow, there was
Speaker 2: one in fraser Rap and it was really interesting because
Speaker 2: both the industry and the processes as well as the
Speaker 2: research community, they were both saying the same thing that
Speaker 2: they wanted to have more interaction together. They wanted the
Speaker 2: researchers really wanted to be doing relevant science and research,
Speaker 2: but they'd never been to a processing factory before. They
Speaker 2: know been out on the boats. They hadn't actually had
Speaker 2: those conversations with you know, the people that were experiencing
Speaker 2: the history's industry every day. And at the same time,
Speaker 2: the industry was saying, actually love to have PhD students
Speaker 2: or researchers come to the facilities and understand that problem
Speaker 2: is better. It was so interesting to hear It's like, Okay, yes,
Speaker 2: let's get people crossing over outside of their their ex
Speaker 2: system and bubbles. And I'm super excited for what the
Speaker 2: Scottishish and Cluster team is is kind of making happen
Speaker 2: there because there's so much need for this, the crossover experiences.
Speaker 2: Yeah you all walks of the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that fascinated me having been my father
Speaker 1: with that fisherman, so as my life in the fishing industry.
Speaker 1: From the fishing industry, I would class myself and although
Speaker 1: I was in a restaurant for twenty years, and yes
Speaker 1: that's the hospitality industry, but my menu was one hundred
Speaker 1: percent seafood, So I classed myself as still in the
Speaker 1: fishing industry even in the restaurant. Sure. But one of
Speaker 1: the things that fascinated when you with that Alexandra was
Speaker 1: been at members of different organizations and at the meetings
Speaker 1: and confidences and that with the chef's hat on, I
Speaker 1: was fascinated to discovered how dumb a little and how
Speaker 1: much in common fishermen and chefs actually have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, they really value the product they're working with you.
Speaker 2: They're they're very connected with it. They want to see
Speaker 2: something good quality came out of it. Their naturalies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, from a fisherman's point of view, they'll be listening
Speaker 1: to this and thinking what does this actually change for me?
Speaker 1: Are they seeing are they to see more value coming
Speaker 1: back to them or is this more that the value
Speaker 1: has still been realized further up in them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is I think it kind of links so
Speaker 2: much to that it has to make sense for communities,
Speaker 2: for businesses, for people to engage, and I think it
Speaker 2: has to make sense for the fishermen as well too.
Speaker 2: It's just reminded me also of conversations we've had. I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna use an example from Alaska because it's it
Speaker 2: was it's quite a different eke system to the UK
Speaker 2: and to Islands as well for the dishury sector there,
Speaker 2: because there they had small family fishing companies that really
Speaker 2: wanted to handle a better product, wanted to you know,
Speaker 2: look out an material better, wanted to do for utilization.
Speaker 2: But the challenge was for all the better handling they did,
Speaker 2: they were not getting a better price for their fish
Speaker 2: at the processor because there was so much competition for volume.
Speaker 2: So I think this is really interesting because though we've
Speaker 2: been exploring what does that look like? And this particular
Speaker 2: company has been actually teamed up with some Icelandic companies
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of conversation happening in Alaska. How
Speaker 2: does this work for the fishermen? So just your question
Speaker 2: really brought this to mind because I think that is
Speaker 2: so important that that the value travels through the value chain.
Speaker 2: So for example, to take it to Scotland, like when
Speaker 2: I was out there recently, I was visiting a scallop
Speaker 2: processing facility and there, you know, it's the it's the
Speaker 2: meat and sometimes the meat and the go and add
Speaker 2: the solders. The you know, is bought by the processor
Speaker 2: from the fissure to the procesum facility. But then the
Speaker 2: skirts and any other vista and the shells. Is it
Speaker 2: either being taken away at a cost or in some
Speaker 2: cases being given away or like they have a small
Speaker 2: value associated, but I think if there was an uptaker
Speaker 2: that was or a value creation from let's say those shells,
Speaker 2: where the processor was getting more for the shell, that
Speaker 2: means then further down the value chain for the fisher
Speaker 2: they have more power to because there's not just the
Speaker 2: meat and the gonut, but also the shell which has
Speaker 2: its own piece of value creation there. So I think
Speaker 2: that is an element that's really important and also why
Speaker 2: it's so key for people to be speaking together around
Speaker 2: value chain as well, not so the fishes and the processes,
Speaker 2: and that the next up taker, be that a retailer
Speaker 2: or be that a whole seal buyer, like to have
Speaker 2: those conversations. But yeah, I think it's really important and
Speaker 2: just there is a role for clusters really to play
Speaker 2: in that navigating those conversations too.
Speaker 1: I know when good back I don't have. I don't
Speaker 1: know the current situation, but the problem with it what
Speaker 1: we call the skirt on the scarlet, what the processor
Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to keep it, and it was a food
Speaker 1: standard agency. It's not that they had a market for it,
Speaker 1: it's the food that standard agency. I was saying that
Speaker 1: the toxins and things were gathered in that which I
Speaker 1: don't understand that, but my goodness, the skirt of a scallop,
Speaker 1: it'll make a source like nothing else.
Speaker 2: It's quite like a billion like stock would.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just brilliant. What a stock that would make
Speaker 1: for soup or something like that.
Speaker 2: I think this is an interesting piece is well because
Speaker 2: I think the handling the food safety, which is one
Speaker 2: thing of course this is important, but also handling too
Speaker 2: because often when things are processed and they're not let's
Speaker 2: take the skirts for example, and they're taking off the
Speaker 2: processing belt and you know, thrown to the box or
Speaker 2: they're turned to the floor, even they're no longer you know,
Speaker 2: food grade, that also changes what you can do with them.
Speaker 2: And it's not specific a scallops, but in many processing abilities.
Speaker 2: If you don't continue to handle the product all these
Speaker 2: different past of the product as grade, this can be
Speaker 2: very challenging of what we can do with it next.
Speaker 2: But I think because we do, we look outside of
Speaker 2: the space of food as well. And when we're talking
Speaker 2: about one hundred is utilization with for sure, food is
Speaker 2: a big part of that, but we're also thinking about
Speaker 2: nutritional supplementation, cosmetics and other biomasses that can be used
Speaker 2: even into the fuels for example, where you could then
Speaker 2: at least uh remove the risk of human toxicity and
Speaker 2: if it was used as the edible product. But even
Speaker 2: into things like biotechnology, into into biomedical applications, there's a
Speaker 2: lot that could be done, or even textiles and materials.
Speaker 2: So I think I'm very much an optimist and like
Speaker 2: solutions orientated, I do think there is a there is
Speaker 2: a fit for every different materials. Just finding what that
Speaker 2: right one is and yeah, and also figuring out maybe
Speaker 2: what what testing or what measures on one you need
Speaker 2: to be done in order to make that material available,
Speaker 2: because right now I think in most cases those skirts
Speaker 2: just go to landfill.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, but you said there just reminded me of
Speaker 1: a weak cutch frase I used to use at the restaurant.
Speaker 1: There's a fish for every dosh and a dish for
Speaker 1: every season.
Speaker 2: Love it, Yes, not exactly what it is. I was trying.
Speaker 2: I was trying to think of an analogy for us.
Speaker 2: I'm sure this is saying somewhere, yeah, perfect, So the
Speaker 2: fish fairy dish and the fish ferries or dish to
Speaker 2: every season, Yes, exactly, And I think that's also i'd
Speaker 2: say something that I feel like the cluster ecosystem opens
Speaker 2: up the opportunities because we have in the house and
Speaker 2: within our ecosystem. Yes, of course we have the fishery sector,
Speaker 2: we have the aquaculture sector, that we have the processing
Speaker 2: and the technology sector. We have more and more we
Speaker 2: have the information and the AI technology ecosystem. But we
Speaker 2: also have people that are doing cosmetics and wellness and
Speaker 2: marketing and medical applications. And it's also that it's an
Speaker 2: analogous to what you said about the different food cultures
Speaker 2: as well, because you don't know what values they can
Speaker 2: have until someone says, oh, hey, okay, you're right, you
Speaker 2: can't use that over here in your industry. But you know,
Speaker 2: we're actually looking for something like this in the in
Speaker 2: the cosmetics sector, in the material sector. Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: it's just fascinating. What if you can bring these different
Speaker 2: diverse perspectives together, what can come out of it. We
Speaker 2: have a lot of artists actually as well in house,
Speaker 2: which is really I always love working with them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. My act phase I used was more from our
Speaker 1: point of view, trying to encourage people to eat, not
Speaker 1: just stick with the species that they they think this
Speaker 1: is their favorite just move with the seasons and don't
Speaker 1: stick with the species. They move with the seasons, and
Speaker 1: I was I felt quite strongly as well. When we
Speaker 1: talk about sustainability the world, I would say my description
Speaker 1: would be the most overused word in the English language.
Speaker 1: And I feel the key to sustainability is seasonality, local
Speaker 1: and I always would follow that up by saying, if
Speaker 1: we eat everything in season, we're healthier and the fish
Speaker 1: stops are healthier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that also comes to the
Speaker 2: people knowing what's in season and what's available where, and
Speaker 2: having local access as well. In tiers, I think like
Speaker 2: that you say your restaurant has been a great route
Speaker 2: to doing that. I just sorry. It reminds me of
Speaker 2: a statistical work. We work with an organ Ocean Clusters.
Speaker 2: It's one of our sister Ocean Custers in the US,
Speaker 2: and that sister Ocean Custer actually got started through the
Speaker 2: Oregon Coast Business Associations, so from a tourist perspective, because
Speaker 2: what they were finding, they did some measuring and monetary
Speaker 2: and during COVID they found that ninety of the seafood
Speaker 2: caught and produced in Oregon was shipped out and about
Speaker 2: ninety percent I think it was something around ninety was
Speaker 2: from overseas was shipped in to be the seafood at
Speaker 2: seafood restaurants. So it's such a fascinating kind of They've
Speaker 2: got all this wonderful seafood on the Oregon coast, but
Speaker 2: a lot of it actually wasn't even available in the area,
Speaker 2: and that's really what triggered them to start looking into
Speaker 2: well local seafood, but also then for utilization and connecting
Speaker 2: all these really distributed actors. And it is fascinating because
Speaker 2: you don't think about that eating when you're going to
Speaker 2: the seaside. Oh of course I'm eating fish from here,
Speaker 2: but actually that's not always the case. So I think
Speaker 2: that can really complicate the decision making.
Speaker 1: I remember when he's talking to wholesaler are based in
Speaker 1: Georgia and US, and I was absolutely stargard because we
Speaker 1: went a lot when our family were younger. We went
Speaker 1: a lot the Thames to Florida and there see all
Speaker 1: arounders end up by Georgia, and he was telling me
Speaker 1: all this all the bush for the restaurants was coming
Speaker 1: from the Pacific, from up about Seattle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's yeah, it's a I think it's a similar
Speaker 2: picture in a lot of parts of the world. And
Speaker 2: this is also not to speak down on glabilitations. I
Speaker 2: think it's amazing that we had this opportunity to dry
Speaker 2: things and connect with the rest of the world and
Speaker 2: the supply chains, but it also does mean that you
Speaker 2: end up overlooking local opportunities sometimes in local secret and
Speaker 2: value that. Yeah, I think it's just so nice for
Speaker 2: people to be able to connect because I think it's
Speaker 2: often that people knew about it more. They knew what
Speaker 2: was possible and how to cook local seafood or or
Speaker 2: what was in season when then they would be engaging
Speaker 2: more with it as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we hear a lot about collaboration and innovation through
Speaker 1: clusters that what does the cluster model deliver that couldn't
Speaker 1: be achieved through normal commercial relationships.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. We get this question a lot as well,
Speaker 2: like how to you know, what's what's the value of
Speaker 2: being involved for a business? And I think we've touched
Speaker 2: on one of them, which is in our cruster house
Speaker 2: and within the cluster community, we have like a couple
Speaker 2: of different rules in house, so it's like there's a
Speaker 2: three thousand squat building with all these these companies inside,
Speaker 2: we actually ask them not to have coffee machines in
Speaker 2: their own offices. We have coffee machines in these shared
Speaker 2: open the kitchen spaces we have On Friday every week
Speaker 2: we have a breakfast brunch. Altogether, different companies take turns
Speaker 2: to host it. It's when they get the opportunity to
Speaker 2: introduce themselves to the wider community, to talk about what
Speaker 2: they're doing, to explore where they're interested to connect. And
Speaker 2: I think so much of that doesn't happen in a
Speaker 2: commercial setting because they're not necessarily sitting down to brunch
Speaker 2: to do a business deal. But they are saying, hey,
Speaker 2: here's the new product or idea that i'm testing. Here's
Speaker 2: the idea I'm interested in. And even a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks ago, we had a company that were saying, oh,
Speaker 2: we're about to launch this product. We need beta testers
Speaker 2: that are in that have this no power in this sector.
Speaker 2: And another company went, oh, to come and talk to
Speaker 2: us after lunch. There's definitely a this is something we
Speaker 2: could do. So they're not going into the ecosystem with
Speaker 2: that commercial business setting, but they're making these important relationships
Speaker 2: that really develop a lot of trust as well, and
Speaker 2: even so one of the companies that it was presenting
Speaker 2: to the EU Commissioner that came last week. They're called
Speaker 2: learn Cove. So they are a software platform essentially that
Speaker 2: are now focused on the seafood sector and they help
Speaker 2: on board the new employees. They helped train them across
Speaker 2: a really multilingual ecosystem, and they also helped with that
Speaker 2: compliance and process management and everything within the fishery sector.
Speaker 2: But when they came into house, so they moved in
Speaker 2: house around the same time I started working here as
Speaker 2: a four or five years ago, and at that time
Speaker 2: they actually went specifically they touched on the seaford industry,
Speaker 2: which is why they were moving in house, but they
Speaker 2: were working across a lot of other ecosystems too that
Speaker 2: they came in house and actually started working and found
Speaker 2: a lot more customers and connections in the seafood sector.
Speaker 2: Again not in a commercial setting or like at an expo,
Speaker 2: but because they were, you know, talking to people and
Speaker 2: building relationships. And actually now they do entirely focus on
Speaker 2: the seafood sector for the I think for the vast
Speaker 2: majority of their work. So I think it's these and
Speaker 2: so all these kind of inherent maybe slightly intangible ways
Speaker 2: that you connect with people and realize how you can
Speaker 2: work together. And the other thing too is the fact
Speaker 2: that we have people from different perspectives, different educations, different ecosystems.
Speaker 2: Like I said, we have a lot of artists in house,
Speaker 2: we have a lot of marketing people, we have investors,
Speaker 2: so we also have put in cosmetics and wellness as
Speaker 2: well as then in seafood. And it's this as a
Speaker 2: fisher or a fisher process. So you might not be
Speaker 2: going to events for activities where you would meet those
Speaker 2: people at all or even come across them all. You know,
Speaker 2: it would be you're not in the same environment. So
Speaker 2: I think it's very interesting. The clusters and communities can
Speaker 2: bring together a lot more different opportunities and I think
Speaker 2: make the sector more resilient. I think diversity is the
Speaker 2: spice of life and just makes everything a lot more
Speaker 2: resilient when you can connect with people outside of your silo.
Speaker 2: And then I would say the other thing that is
Speaker 2: really important I think is what we focus on a
Speaker 2: lot about the Island social cluster too, is and we
Speaker 2: get the question a lot like, well, with all these
Speaker 2: companies here, isn't it kind of compromising their competitiveness or
Speaker 2: where does that line between collaboration and competitiveness lie. And
Speaker 2: I think a lot of what we focus on is
Speaker 2: finding these points that are mutually of interest and of
Speaker 2: mutual benefit to collaborate on. For example, right at the
Speaker 2: beginning when the cluster was initiated, when the first meetings
Speaker 2: was about bringing all the production managers from the different
Speaker 2: processing facilities together to understand, Okay, what could they work
Speaker 2: on that is mutually beneficial to all of them and
Speaker 2: doesn't impinge on their competitive edge or things that they
Speaker 2: weren't putting to share. So it's also, yeah, in that way,
Speaker 2: very different from a commercial relationships that, okay, where can
Speaker 2: we collaborate where it's mutually beneficial, what is maybe a
Speaker 2: pre competitive benefit? And I think one hundred percent fish
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons it's been successful here too,
Speaker 2: it is so much a case of these companies don't
Speaker 2: want to be wasting value. It makes sense to together
Speaker 2: collaborate on ways or even invest in companies collaboratively that
Speaker 2: are going to help them or get more value for
Speaker 2: their material when they sell it to the next step
Speaker 2: in the valuten or or directly process it. So I
Speaker 2: mentioned Marine College and as an example of this. So
Speaker 2: there were a couple of fisheries companies that were co
Speaker 2: invested in the build of this marine collagen factory, and
Speaker 2: the same with a company called carelessis in Iceland, which
Speaker 2: you may have heard of. Would I'd say it's probably
Speaker 2: at least in Iceland that is one of the most
Speaker 2: famous companies because they are They started in the West
Speaker 2: Spirits of Iceland in a fishing village in Easipia, essentially
Speaker 2: processing the Atlantic cod skin into skin grafts and woond
Speaker 2: dressings for burns and the diabetic source and it's really
Speaker 2: full utilization to the biomedical sector. And they developed this idea.
Speaker 2: They pitched their events to the industry, the fisheries and
Speaker 2: to know as well as venture capital, and it was
Speaker 2: the fisheries industry, for example, that fishing village that had
Speaker 2: invested in this idea, and in twenty twenty three Careses
Speaker 2: they sold for one point three billion US dollars. And
Speaker 2: it's just it's fascinating because not only has that created
Speaker 2: wealth and gone back to those fishing industry and the community,
Speaker 2: it's also got them. It's created this lovely domino effect
Speaker 2: of people are looking okay, what's the Metscare's is how
Speaker 2: do we what should we be investing in next? It's
Speaker 2: really transformed this. It's also changed the way that the
Speaker 2: young people and young innovatives and high school students even
Speaker 2: are thinking about how can we use every part of
Speaker 2: the fish. If the fish skin we wants to out
Speaker 2: can now be worth this much, what else could we
Speaker 2: be doing? What's what's the next thing? So I think
Speaker 2: it's it's really interesting to see that it's the fisheries
Speaker 2: that investing in that. That's because there was also this
Speaker 2: you know, each system where they were able to meet.
Speaker 1: I'm very impressed there, Alexandria. The term when you were
Speaker 1: some of the you mentioned a port in Iceland, and
Speaker 1: if you're there, I thought that as all, my goodness
Speaker 1: is so like an Icelander.
Speaker 2: I'm working very hard on the language I could speak.
Speaker 1: But it's p and off, it's and off.
Speaker 2: Thank you to work in progress. But it sounds very
Speaker 2: impressive to people that don't speak for island, and they're like,
Speaker 2: you have a strong accent. But now I just.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not gonna I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: nasty and say to you tell me a sentence, a
Speaker 1: nice landing because my son was there. We I've said
Speaker 1: that before. He was there for two years and what
Speaker 1: I asked him how he was getting on and he says, well,
Speaker 1: what do you think? He says, it's the most expensive,
Speaker 1: one of the most expensive countries in the world, and
Speaker 1: it's the most difficult language in the world to learn.
Speaker 2: They say, it's in the top ten.
Speaker 1: Well, you did very well there, Thank you, thank you. Well.
Speaker 2: I'm happy to always you get that's good. I prefer
Speaker 2: to do it in English.
Speaker 1: Of course. There's a lot to talk about innovation and seafood,
Speaker 1: what's genuinely game changing and maybe just noise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is I was thinking about this
Speaker 2: question a lot because I think hindsight of course with
Speaker 2: twenty twenty so it's the case of what innovation really
Speaker 2: is in the long term going to make a big,
Speaker 2: big impact on what's not. But I think the thing
Speaker 2: that comes up on more and more every day as
Speaker 2: well is that now more than ever, we're able to collect, store, measure,
Speaker 2: and interpret big data sets than we ever have been
Speaker 2: before with the input of say AI. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of controversy of course around AI, but I think there's
Speaker 2: a lot or at least computer processing to be able
Speaker 2: to deal with huge amounts of information, and we're able
Speaker 2: to make much more informed decisions than we ever have
Speaker 2: been able to before about where do we fish and when,
Speaker 2: how is the population of fish doing? Is you know,
Speaker 2: are our surveys accurate? Are we using our fuel in
Speaker 2: the most are we are we driving our vessel in
Speaker 2: the most efficient way to get to site? Are we
Speaker 2: using the most efficient routes? And thinking particularly about some
Speaker 2: of the companies or so that we have in house,
Speaker 2: like Heathering Heavy Marine that are using sensors within vessels
Speaker 2: to help guide operators and fishing vessels and coastguard vessels
Speaker 2: to site with the best fuel efficiency and the best
Speaker 2: route and the best speed depending on the conditions. And
Speaker 2: the companies like green Fish their own house, which are
Speaker 2: a young company, but they're using really strong amounts of
Speaker 2: satellite data and as well as captain's logs and all
Speaker 2: that wealth of know how on the fishing vessels themselves
Speaker 2: to make really accurate predictions of where are the fish
Speaker 2: when and which sites to fish at, and and just
Speaker 2: making the whole process more efficient, you know, within the
Speaker 2: balance of sustainably managed fishery was make sure, that's that's key.
Speaker 2: People will then say, Okay, what are people not just
Speaker 2: going to fish? More so, I think it's how we
Speaker 2: deal with data and what we can interpret and the
Speaker 2: the decisions, the quality of the decisions that we can make,
Speaker 2: innovations that are supporting this. I think there's so much
Speaker 2: the same as utilization of fish is so much more
Speaker 2: we can understand about what can we do with these
Speaker 2: different types of fish, and we can reach so much
Speaker 2: wider audiences. So I will say that's really a game changing,
Speaker 2: you know, in a way we have something that we
Speaker 2: wouldn't even been able to do as as humans interpreting
Speaker 2: the data alone before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really interesting. M Are we over complicating things
Speaker 1: with technology when they're are handling and maybe traditional practices
Speaker 1: could solve of the problems.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think better handling traditional practices more streamline you
Speaker 2: know processing or even the streamline steps within in a
Speaker 2: processing facility. I think so much of this is absolutely key.
Speaker 2: If you don't have this, then you know, all those
Speaker 2: other steps don't make sense. I think when we look
Speaker 2: at i'm SI fish in a new location, for example,
Speaker 2: in where we've been working with a team and in
Speaker 2: the Great eights of the US and Canada. There so
Speaker 2: much of it was a case of, you know, just
Speaker 2: the handling of where are the fish, that that big
Speaker 2: question of where are the fish? Where where? How they distributed,
Speaker 2: you know, how how they stored all these kind of
Speaker 2: key information. How can we maybe streamline this better. How
Speaker 2: can we even just implement more traditional practices like smoking
Speaker 2: the fish or different parts of the fish on site.
Speaker 2: Like I think there's so much value and importance so
Speaker 2: to say, all to say, really this shouldn't be overlooked
Speaker 2: because this is the the game changing at the beginning.
Speaker 2: We're doing this really interesting project right now called Shrimp.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of a spin off particularly for shrimp
Speaker 2: that we're working with Rural Greenland in Greenland to the
Speaker 2: world's biggest cold water shrimp and their company. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: they they have high quality products. They're looking to do
Speaker 2: something more with their prawn shells, their shrimp shells. They
Speaker 2: were using them for shrimp meal in some cases and
Speaker 2: they're not not finding a way to create value for
Speaker 2: the rest of the shells. Now in this project, they're
Speaker 2: teaming up with a company called prime X, which they
Speaker 2: see in the Icelands Ocean cruster as well to prepare
Speaker 2: the shells in Greenland in for example Lula sat and system,
Speaker 2: but particularly to have them just the right particle size,
Speaker 2: just the right dryness so they can be used in
Speaker 2: a process to create kitisan in Icelands and Curtesan is
Speaker 2: a bioactive compound that has a lot of different applications
Speaker 2: that it can be used in in foods and feeds,
Speaker 2: in immune supplements, it can be used even in medical
Speaker 2: grades applications. So it's a really interesting molecule. And there
Speaker 2: what was interesting is while all these very key important
Speaker 2: technology and specialist steps have been needed to be developed
Speaker 2: and now developing the key thing actually was like the
Speaker 2: first thing that the step was like, actually, how can
Speaker 2: we improve the flow and the the the efficiency of
Speaker 2: the existing system. So I think there's so much of
Speaker 2: that that has to happen first, and particularly when we're
Speaker 2: going to a place where they're so you know, they're
Speaker 2: just using the billet and the rest of the fissues
Speaker 2: is going to land like those the first steps is
Speaker 2: always handling, storage, streamlining. It is really that when you
Speaker 2: get to your like your more complicated steps of the
Speaker 2: value chain. For example, if you're creating something that goes
Speaker 2: beyond food grade handling, and it needs specialist equipment or
Speaker 2: specialists like know how into cosmetics, into biomedicine, into biotech.
Speaker 2: That's where, really I would say, that's that next stage
Speaker 2: of the journey where it does you have this kind
Speaker 2: of trade off there where there's more complexity, and that's
Speaker 2: when the higher value, like the really high value examples
Speaker 2: can come in. But I think it can't be overstated
Speaker 2: how important those ye know, yeah, traditional good handling. Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: You know, it's amazing at times, Alexandria. I'm not speaking
Speaker 1: for the world or the country or that I experienced myself,
Speaker 1: and talking to people they say the same. We talk
Speaker 1: about sustainability and maximum usage of things, and when you
Speaker 1: look at it and think about it, it's no more
Speaker 1: than our pet. But we were young.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, I feel like the circular economy and like
Speaker 2: full utilization is kind of it's just remembering what we've traditionally,
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe looking at it with a modern lens
Speaker 2: and creating new types of value, but just as a concept.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think interestingly in Iceland and UK is
Speaker 2: you know in Ireland nation that that's so inherent in
Speaker 2: the history and tradition of not letting anything waste, because
Speaker 2: if you let stuff waste, you went on and there
Speaker 2: wasn't something else to have. I think it's just it's
Speaker 2: like remembering and building on this and I think it's
Speaker 2: quite fascinating because we in Iceland, it has the largest
Speaker 2: commercial fish skin tannery in the world making fish skin leather,
Speaker 2: and it's really beautiful and it and it's done, you know,
Speaker 2: with with modern techniques. But it's fascinating because this is
Speaker 2: so much in the heritage of you know, the first
Speaker 2: settlers in Iceland. But they you know, they needed sturdy,
Speaker 2: waterproof shoes and fish skin leather. Actually the woodfish the
Speaker 2: spotted to wolfish or clearly because it is an Icelandic
Speaker 2: there's in the Maritime Museum you can see an old
Speaker 2: pair of these shoes. And I mean, of course there's
Speaker 2: indigenous and fascination cultures around the world that have been
Speaker 2: you know, have long history and know how making fish
Speaker 2: skin leather. So it's and now like it's fascinating now
Speaker 2: like companies like Fucci and Nike and these high end
Speaker 2: fashion brands are starting to incorporate fish skin leather, like
Speaker 2: this modern movement in textiles. But it's fascinating because you know,
Speaker 2: it's based in heritage, so I think the importance of
Speaker 2: heritage is also can't be overstated.
Speaker 1: That sounds good. Kind of small and dependent operators realistically
Speaker 1: benefit from these innovations or this is just becoming a
Speaker 1: game changer for large players.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is an important conversations. I think we talked
Speaker 2: about Iceland sort of being unique because here there are
Speaker 2: not many small scale fishes. It is highly consolidated. It's
Speaker 2: high volume, you know, yeah, consolidated, whereas a lot of
Speaker 2: places where we work. So it's also the benefit of
Speaker 2: having these thirteen cist Osian clusters around the world because
Speaker 2: we've seen how this one fish thinking and this model
Speaker 2: needs to be adapted where there are, for example, lots
Speaker 2: of small scale fishermen I think about in h in Scotland,
Speaker 2: but also I'm back and forth to Oregon and Scotland
Speaker 2: a lot. The CSI will use these examples because they're
Speaker 2: also in Oregon, there's a lot of small scale fishermen
Speaker 2: that are you know, catching and then selling well directed
Speaker 2: processor and I think what's interesting they're what they've been
Speaker 2: exploring is how can how can these small scale fishers
Speaker 2: benefit from this, how can they engage with this in
Speaker 2: a way that makes sense with how they operate and
Speaker 2: how they're you know, how the ecosystem is there. So
Speaker 2: what they've been exploring is around bringing volume together, so
Speaker 2: having fishermen's cooperatives so that they can actually they can
Speaker 2: be landing their fish and then having for example, either
Speaker 2: shared storage facilities or in the case of Oregon, and
Speaker 2: they've invested in a mobile processing units that can actually
Speaker 2: go out to the fishermen so that they can be
Speaker 2: processing and actually then with the ports having the discussion
Speaker 2: of okay, how can the processing happen at the dots
Speaker 2: and those fishermen actually be selling direct to local customers,
Speaker 2: And of course it's a part of that conversation organ
Speaker 2: of how do you get more local food to two people.
Speaker 2: So I think that's one way, and I think here
Speaker 2: collaboration and clusters in general play a really key role
Speaker 2: because I think it is really challenging for a small
Speaker 2: scale producers or fishes to do this alone because volume
Speaker 2: is so important for for you know, having market power
Speaker 2: or to do something to create value or even to invest.
Speaker 2: So I think here small scale fishes to benefit and
Speaker 2: to build those next stages in the value chain often
Speaker 2: do need to collaborate to bring those volumes together. Yes,
Speaker 2: I definitely think it's possible.
Speaker 1: For fishes, that's couraging the acland versus a raised. This
Speaker 1: year is a good time to say that. With it
Speaker 1: the World Cup years, there's stuff that held, there's a
Speaker 1: gold standard. What are they doing differently that others like
Speaker 1: the UK still haven't grasped?
Speaker 2: Is it? Like I said, it's kind of this. It
Speaker 2: is a unique environment in many ways which is given
Speaker 2: it a head start. And there is this culture of
Speaker 2: risk taking culture a little bit like everything and you've
Speaker 2: been here yourself, they say, if you don't like the weather,
Speaker 2: wait wait five minutes. Like you know, there is this
Speaker 2: inherent kind of instability in the ecosystem with the volcanic
Speaker 2: activity and things. So I think people here innovation. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of space for people to try things like fisheries, companies,
Speaker 2: innovators to test out ideas and sometimes they fail, sometimes
Speaker 2: they work. But I think there's a lot of forgiveness
Speaker 2: in that in terms of like for example, there's you know,
Speaker 2: government funding to try out new projects and build new
Speaker 2: technologies and test things out. There's a lot of willingness
Speaker 2: therefore in the industry to invest in those ideas and
Speaker 2: to get things to try. I would say that that's
Speaker 2: a little bit sometimes the herd or we come across that.
Speaker 2: It's different in Iceland than I say, almost anywhere else
Speaker 2: to go in the world because there is this there's
Speaker 2: not really any risk a version in Iceland in this way,
Speaker 2: particularly that those early stage of ideas that has allowed
Speaker 2: things to multiply and have this domino effect towards where
Speaker 2: we see the Atlantic Pod today, which is all these
Speaker 2: different ways that we can use it, and that's worth
Speaker 2: around five thousand US dollars because it's been reimagined and
Speaker 2: it's had the opportunity. And I would say we see
Speaker 2: that a lot at the Ocean Cluster because we have
Speaker 2: a lot of young companies. I have a small company
Speaker 2: myself as well as many of the people in my team.
Speaker 2: We're very entrepreneurial by nature. Yeah, but there is there's
Speaker 2: a lot of opportunity to be entrepreneurial, and I think
Speaker 2: that's helped a lot in big businesses in small scale startups.
Speaker 1: Is it something that can realistically be copied or is
Speaker 1: it unique to Island?
Speaker 2: I think culture, of course an ecosystem is different in
Speaker 2: every place, but there are certainly similarities. But I think
Speaker 2: what can be adapted and transferred to other places is
Speaker 2: really figuring out where to start too, for example, to
Speaker 2: the risk making these changes and making these adaptations like
Speaker 2: figuring out and what we spent a lot of time
Speaker 2: doing at the Isan DISI and clusters, dissecting what worked
Speaker 2: and why, and therefore in another ecosystem, what might work
Speaker 2: when and how to make it work. So I think,
Speaker 2: while perhaps I think the culture of risk taking is
Speaker 2: not a super easy thing to transfer, and maybe mor
Speaker 2: should it be. You know, every place is for its
Speaker 2: own unique flavor, but I think the where to start
Speaker 2: and how to start on what was successful can really
Speaker 2: help those next steps happen elsewhere. And that's certainly what
Speaker 2: we're seeing in in the work they we're doing in
Speaker 2: the Pacific, in the maybe in Africa and in the
Speaker 2: US in Scotland as well. So yeah, I really do
Speaker 2: think that's the route to help that happen.
Speaker 1: Democrassion, would you say the real opportunity in a new
Speaker 1: products or finally valuing what we already catch properly. But
Speaker 1: before you were to say that, I would say you're
Speaker 1: being very fair to the people in the UK. When
Speaker 1: you describe culture, I would describe it there are two
Speaker 1: set in their ways and we want caught. You know.
Speaker 1: I could remember, I remember I had a fish factory
Speaker 1: sending from about nineteen eighty to the late nineties, and
Speaker 1: I could break down the whole UK where they would
Speaker 1: deep place, where they would deep cord hack.
Speaker 2: It's Do you think it's still like.
Speaker 1: This to a good degree? Yeah, unfortunately.
Speaker 2: I look forward to what the Scottish gym class is
Speaker 2: going to be doing to check it out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's fantastic. I think it's credit to them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they do a great job. They work hard at it too.
Speaker 1: Our consumers actually driving this change or is it still
Speaker 1: in dis relayed do you.
Speaker 2: Feel Yeah, I'll speak from my perspective, so I'm really
Speaker 2: not an expert in the kind of the retail consumer space,
Speaker 2: but I feel like I see a lot more still
Speaker 2: dang driven from the industry, from the innovators and from
Speaker 2: the investors. Actually interestingly then I do seeing directly from
Speaker 2: the consumers, I would say, the retailers and the buyers,
Speaker 2: and the kind of those wholesale buyers. They certainly driving change,
Speaker 2: and of course they're that direct face to the customers
Speaker 2: in many contexts. But I do feel like in most
Speaker 2: places that go Iceland includes to be honest, when you're consumer,
Speaker 2: at the customer at the supermarket, you're not You're thinking
Speaker 2: about okay, here's the the codpiller and buying and not
Speaker 2: thinking wonder where the rest of this fishes and what's
Speaker 2: happened to it. So I feel like that's not I'm
Speaker 2: not sure necessarily it's on the I think it's good
Speaker 2: that everyone's thinking about it, but I do think that
Speaker 2: often there's a lot of pressure on the customer and
Speaker 2: the consumer to change their ways. They have better purchasing
Speaker 2: habits and purchasing power, and I think this is this
Speaker 2: is important, but the in terms of the real volume
Speaker 2: of change that can happen further along the back down
Speaker 2: the supply chain, that's really where I think there's a
Speaker 2: lot of power to change. I think customers often don't
Speaker 2: know what they want until they they see in front
Speaker 2: of them as well. But I see a lot of
Speaker 2: it still being driven by industry, by innovators, and by
Speaker 2: people actually seeing a business opportunity and changing the way
Speaker 2: things are done. I think even more now that you
Speaker 2: know the quotas have been cut. You know there is
Speaker 2: less volume that can be caught. It's true as industry
Speaker 2: of Scotland and North Atlantic, and I think more than ever,
Speaker 2: it's a kind of a change in the mindset and
Speaker 2: industry as well as how do we do more with less? Now?
Speaker 2: How do we make sure our industry continues to not
Speaker 2: only survive but thrive as well.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so true that you're saying there, and
Speaker 1: I just feel why should we You know, it's a concert,
Speaker 1: good bacter, a peer and statement we were mentioned in
Speaker 1: earlier why should we waste anything? Yeah, the model clusters
Speaker 1: sounds good paper, collaboration, innovation, shared values, But fishermen will
Speaker 1: ask what does this actually do for me at sea
Speaker 1: or in the key? Have you seen real increases and
Speaker 1: income for fishermen because of the cluster model or is
Speaker 1: most of the value being captured further up?
Speaker 2: I think again, Essen, it's a kind of unique space
Speaker 2: iness because it's quite vertically integrated, so there definitely is
Speaker 2: that clear capture of value along the value chain. And
Speaker 2: I think being involved in clusters and collaborating and being
Speaker 2: able to showcase what those value chains look like and
Speaker 2: to meet these different innovators E. Sauch. This definitely has
Speaker 2: created value tangibly here in the fisheries exystem as a
Speaker 2: whole in the blue economy. I think it's interesting because
Speaker 2: like down on the key here, like it is it different.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I think it's quite a unique system
Speaker 2: and being quite consolidated and vertically integrated. So I think
Speaker 2: where we see those kind of changes are going to
Speaker 2: be in places that Oregon probably Scotland to where it
Speaker 2: will be opening opportunities to bring volume together, to have
Speaker 2: for example, a shared storage space, to have more direct
Speaker 2: to customer selling power or space or opportunity. And I
Speaker 2: think that's where it's the the value really can be
Speaker 2: captured directly.
Speaker 1: What's the biggest misconception people have about ocean clusters.
Speaker 2: I would say that it's a misconception is that it's
Speaker 2: just about, you know, bringing people together for a coffee
Speaker 2: and you know that's it and see what happens. So
Speaker 2: I think bringing people together with a food and coffee
Speaker 2: a nine streak is really important and it's a keystone
Speaker 2: of what we do. But there is so much more
Speaker 2: to it than that. There is so much that goes
Speaker 2: on behind the scenes of curating who meets when and
Speaker 2: how and how do we manage the expectations of these
Speaker 2: groups to come together and what is the most beneficial
Speaker 2: way to or what most beneficial topic to bring people
Speaker 2: together on. I mean, alongside that to the Ocean Cluster,
Speaker 2: we run as a private business too. We're not a
Speaker 2: government association. I think that's sometimes a misconception, particularly to
Speaker 2: Iceland's Ocean Cluster. So I mean we also have a team,
Speaker 2: you know, research specialists as well as we run research
Speaker 2: and innovation projects. We do business science, technical consulting. We
Speaker 2: invest in good ideas that we believe in. So I
Speaker 2: think a misconception perhaps might be that a cluster is
Speaker 2: a passive thing, whereas really I see from both our
Speaker 2: Ice and Ocean Cluster and all the different sister ocean
Speaker 2: clusters we work with around the world, it's a very
Speaker 2: active thinks. It takes a lot of time and energy
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of impact behind. What's done is
Speaker 2: not just gathering around good food and coffee, although that
Speaker 2: is a very fun part.
Speaker 1: Okay, do you see anything you feel needs to be
Speaker 1: changed in the global seafood system and what do you
Speaker 1: think would push back against it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like we've touched a little bit on
Speaker 2: this in terms of well, the seafood sector as a whole,
Speaker 2: but like the connection with where the fish is caught,
Speaker 2: what's available locally, how is it available locally, and just
Speaker 2: thinking particularly around like them the salmon sector in Iceland
Speaker 2: and many places that we worked around the world were
Speaker 2: often fish are farmed or landed and they're exported almost
Speaker 2: whole with very minimal primary processing in country and then
Speaker 2: shipped elsewhere, and that can mean that's where also it's
Speaker 2: difficult for the fishmen to see the the direct value
Speaker 2: adds from one hundred percent fish thinking because there's not
Speaker 2: this kind of deep connectivity with the supply chain. And
Speaker 2: then also it affects maybe the trace ability or where
Speaker 2: those different, and we loose that information data importance. You
Speaker 2: kind of lose track of where is that material and hope,
Speaker 2: I mean hopefully it's bringing someone value along the supply
Speaker 2: chain or the value chain, but not in all cases.
Speaker 2: So it's much more. Yes, I would say that again
Speaker 2: not to say we shouldn't have globalized the ly chains
Speaker 2: around seafood or do you think that's important, but I
Speaker 2: think it needs to be balanced with that that local
Speaker 2: ecosystem and local seafood, as you very nicely said, like
Speaker 2: eating what's in season, connecting with you know, local communities
Speaker 2: about what can they eat, how can they cook it?
Speaker 2: And you know, having more processing or even on small
Speaker 2: scale in location where the fisher caught, I think it
Speaker 2: opens up then more opportunities to really tangibly connect to
Speaker 2: every part of the secret that we catch and farm
Speaker 2: and what can be used. And I think one of
Speaker 2: the challenges too is that this is not unique to
Speaker 2: the seafood sector. I think is in our very globalized
Speaker 2: world is that often waste is happening somewhere else, so
Speaker 2: we don't necessarily see it happening. I was thinking about
Speaker 2: some of the textile industry and the technology industry and
Speaker 2: the sefreds industry too, like there are if we don't
Speaker 2: see necessarily that the amount of the secret that we're
Speaker 2: not using that is going to waste, there's less kind
Speaker 2: of impetus and focus on doing something with it because
Speaker 2: it's out of sight, out of mind is someone else's problem.
Speaker 2: So I would say again not to speak against globalizations,
Speaker 2: because I think we're incredibly lucky to live in this
Speaker 2: amazing globalized world. But I think balancing it with connectivity
Speaker 2: to what we're eating and where it's called and every
Speaker 2: part of it and what can be done it is
Speaker 2: also really important.
Speaker 1: Excellent looking ahead, they ten years, what does a successful
Speaker 1: seafood industry actually.
Speaker 2: Look like the you, yeah, in my dream world in
Speaker 2: ten years, I would say, so right now, I touch
Speaker 2: on that World Economic Forum report that came out in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. It's such a useful source of like
Speaker 2: milestone benchmarking. But right now or in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: when the STATA came out, they stated that along the
Speaker 2: seafood supply chain or are aquatic food supply chain, we
Speaker 2: lose and waste more than twenty three million metric tons
Speaker 2: of edible quality aquatic food. So I would say, in
Speaker 2: the you know, the ideal seafoods sector, that waste would
Speaker 2: not there would be no such thing as waste. There
Speaker 2: would be you know, there would be value caught from
Speaker 2: every part of it. All that material that takes time, fuel, labor,
Speaker 2: energy to capture, farm and process would be would have
Speaker 2: a use. I would say. Fisheries that are making around
Speaker 2: the world still, and that's one of the challenges we're
Speaker 2: trying to figure out how best to work with and
Speaker 2: how best to connect one Handerson fish with There are
Speaker 2: a lot of fisheries around the world that are maybe
Speaker 2: not regulated, or.
Speaker 1: Are not.
Speaker 2: Certified, or are you know, maybe the value I think
Speaker 2: about the tuna sector and the Pacific, we're engaged in
Speaker 2: a lot at the moment, Like a lot of the
Speaker 2: fishing happens in some of the Pacific islands of waters
Speaker 2: but isn't ever landed there. So there's a lot of
Speaker 2: this challenges within the seper sector that I think, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot that can be done towards it. More
Speaker 2: certification of fisheries, more, more data that allows us to
Speaker 2: under stand better the state of the fisheries more. If
Speaker 2: more value is being created and more management of those
Speaker 2: fisheries is done, it kind of goes hand in hand
Speaker 2: with the direct connection of the importance of maintaining the stock,
Speaker 2: because that stock is where you get your value from. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I would say in my June world, I think
Speaker 2: ten years it sounds like an ambitious plan to have
Speaker 2: all this fixed, but at least some big steps towards
Speaker 2: that would be great.
Speaker 1: That's brilliant, Alexander. How can your listeners follow you online
Speaker 1: via social media presence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so if you want to have a look
Speaker 2: at the Ocean plus Ice and Docean Cluster in general,
Speaker 2: you can google Ice and Dosan Cluster in our website
Speaker 2: or come up. We're very active on LinkedIn, so both
Speaker 2: the Ice and Docean Cluster has LinkedIn page on myself
Speaker 2: and Alexandra Lipa, PhD on LinkedIn and I'm very active there,
Speaker 2: as is the Sounder and Gairman of the iceand Ocean
Speaker 2: Cluster or Sixson. You can find us both there. That's
Speaker 2: the best place to follow us, and on our website
Speaker 2: we have an active events page two where many of
Speaker 2: our events to a done hybrid base of people around
Speaker 2: the world and engage in interacts.
Speaker 1: You know, I found this a real insightful conversation and
Speaker 1: I've really got to thank you. But before that, Alexandra,
Speaker 1: I would just look to say who I think your
Speaker 1: cluster has got success for written all over it, and
Speaker 1: I the reason I say that from listening to your
Speaker 1: conversations I'm following you on your social media platforms. You
Speaker 1: really do pick up as you believe in it yourself,
Speaker 1: and that really comes across well.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I have to say it's something
Speaker 2: that you know, we live in a very compl hid
Speaker 2: it and challenging what with myself and my team too.
Speaker 2: We we really feel like we're shipping away a really
Speaker 2: big problem. Like we can see the tangible impact of
Speaker 2: the work that we do, and I think that's very
Speaker 2: meaningful and it's I'm very glad that you see we
Speaker 2: do really care about it.
Speaker 1: And the other thing from your comments there about you
Speaker 1: mentioned your dream world. That's quite appropriately just now because
Speaker 1: not that long ago. I don't know if you've what
Speaker 1: sport you've followed, but Rory McElroy has just one for
Speaker 1: the second time, running the Masters in Augusta. The way
Speaker 1: he put it and he was talking about he was
Speaker 1: he was okay, he was on the television, but he
Speaker 1: was talking to his daughter and the comment he made,
Speaker 1: which I think is so appropriately today with you, he's
Speaker 1: just and the Masters. It has been these lifelong ambition
Speaker 1: and he says, believe in your dreams. I think that's
Speaker 1: so powerful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so powerful for his daughter to get to
Speaker 2: hear as well as like, yeah, believe in your dreams,
Speaker 2: work hard, anything's.
Speaker 1: Possible, absolutely, and it's nothing and they're not it's if
Speaker 1: it's your your if it's your dreams, it's not impossible.
Speaker 2: Absolutely no. I love that. What a nice, uplifting way
Speaker 2: to start the week.
Speaker 1: And then the conversation, Thank you very much. I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed that. Today Alexandra had good luck with a clusters.
Speaker 2: Thank you. My absolute passion