Ocean Orchards - Adrian Spierings

TNQ Hone 2023

8 May 2023

Introduction

Ocean Orchards was started through the shared knowledge that microalgae can save the world from the impending climate crisis through their unique abilities to capture carbon. Early on they knew that no one was going to pay for that though, or at least not enough. So we decided to turn to the $7.4 trillion USD global food system, to build a profitable microalgae business that would have the climate action built into the background. To do this the team decided that microalgae had to be made palatable and attractive for consumers.

Ocean Orchards grow micro algae Spirulina at their pilot facility on the Sunshine Coast, QLD. They take the harvested Spirulina and manufacture it, through their in-house developed technology(provisional patent pending), into Spirulina MicroBuds. These Spirulina MicroBuds remove all unpleasant tastes and odours usually attributed to micro algae products

Hone Journey

Ocean Orchards have completely re-adjusted our go to market strategy. Rebuilt their business model canvas from the ground up with granular support from the Farmers2Founders team and cohort, every inch of the way, as painful as it could be sometimes with them challenging our thoughts and ideas. The team also honed in on their customer segments to support the go-to-market strategy in process.

We were stuck, sending all our product to larger companies that thought the product was cool but then tried to push us down on price to the point we became unprofitable. We knew we had to make something happen but we weren't sure what to do.

What's Next?

Ocean Orchards will be continuing to learn about their customers inside and out, making what sales they can with the limited amount of product available and build a marketing strategy where they have identified to reach those customers in an economical and organic way.
The team have just received the contract from AlgaePharm so the next 6 to 12 months will be conducting a raise to scale their processing technology, then implementing that scaled processing.