Our mission
The dual threat of global warming and food shortages looms large in 2021. Mainstream protein production is unsustainable, with livestock emitting 14.5% of greenhouse gasses globally while monopolising 80% of agricultural land for feed production and livestock grazing.
With the global population set to hit 10 billion by 2050, the food industry must cut emissions and use land more efficiently to secure the global food supply.
At Aquoprotein we're doing just that. In partnership with Lim Shrimp Organisation we've developed modules built from agricultural waste that grow sea-cucumber protein in a green and efficient way.
A single Aquoprotein module, 24m2, grows as much protein in a year as an 840m2 lot with 5 cows while emitting 23,000kg less CO2. Aquatic protein is more versatile than livestock's too, with food supplements, baby formula and cosmeceuticals among its many uses. And our modules are completely plastic-free!
Watch our video to learn more:
Our story
In 2019 our Founder and CEO Xiaobin Zhao invented a carbon-neutral adhesive product, Cambond, with his Cambridge-based colleagues. The Cambond team has since successfully commercialised this and other innovative waste-based products.
Later, after joining Allia’s Impact Accelerator programme, Xiaobin disocvered a new application for Cambond’s products: aquatic protein growing modules. This led him to found Aquoprotein in collaboration with the Lim Shrimp Organisation.
Use of our technology is now available to the wider industry through our partner growing programme, which you can read about here.
Meet the team
Xiaobin Zhao
Founder & Director
Xiaobin is a prolific enterpreneur and academic biomaterials inventor with over 25 years' experience in medical devices and green technologies.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry he holds visiting professorships at Strathclyde University (UK) and Changzhou and Lanzhou Universities (China). He's published over 60 scientific papers and holds over 30 biomaterials patents.
Alongside academia, he's had diverse experience developing and commercialising biomaterials products including hyaluronic acid treatments (Mentor Corporation) , bioactive glass (NovaThera) and waste-based protective seed coatings (Cambond).
Aquoprotein is Xiobin’s most recent venture, where he's on a mission to deliver green and cheap protein at scale by producing next-generation aquatic growing modules.
T.K. Lim
Co-founder and Honorary Life Chairman
T.K. Lim is an aquaticulture industry veteran. He co-founded the Lim Shrimp Organisation – the world’s largest integrated shrimp farm – and holds directorships in several publicly listed companies in Malaysia.
After an undergraduate degree at Nanyang University, he took his MBA at Birmingham University before launching his first shrimp farm in Putian in China in the 1980s. This early success led to various advisory roles at shrimp farms in Malaysia.
In the 1990s he started his second shrimp farm on Hainan Island in China. Recently he founded a third, next-generation indoor shrimp farm in JiangSu Province in China, covering a record-breaking 600 acres.
T.K. Lim was recently appointed Aquoprotein's Honorary Life Chairman, a role in which he advises us on, among other things, aquaculture logistics.
Djames Lim
Executive Director
Djames Lim is an expert and global leader in aquatic protein farming, with over 35 years’ experience in the industry.
After graduating from the University of Miami, in the mid-80s he cut his teeth in aquaculture as a shrimp farmer. In the 90s he researched shrimp farming at the Taiwan University of Oceanography. Later he served as Procurement General Manager of the world’s largest integrated shrimp farm, where he introduced vannamei (a type of shrimp) to Indonesia for the first time.
Djames is now Global CEO for the Lim Shrimp Organisation, where he's overseen a $25 million investment in the world’s largest indoor sea cucumber growing facility.
He recently joined as Executive Director at Aquoprotein, where he draws on his and his organisation's expertise and industry relationships to take advantage of new business opportunities.
Michele Pes
Director of European Business Development
Michele Pes is a serial entrepreneur and investor.
He started out as a freelance editor at WDR (the public German broadcaster) in Cologne before becoming Director of New Media at Hit Radio FFH in Frankfurt, and later advisor to the CEO of Pro7 Digital Media.
Having built a successful career in media, he invested in and founded several companies, including media outfits like Paraworld (now VR-Logic), 10tacele Studios, and Slightly Mad Studios, and sustainable aquaculture startups such as Dragon Water Group where he was COO and later, Chairman.
Michele now leads Aquoprotein's business development across Europe.
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