North Carolina sustainable seafood featured at BioMarine kickoff

Wilmington — The 2015 BioMarine international conference kicked off Monday evening with a well-attended invite-only networking event aboard the Battleship North Carolina, moored across the Cape Fear River from downtown Wilmington. Refreshments included an array of sustainably produced North Carolina seafood products and local craft beers, as well as the ubiquitous NC barbecue and cornbread.

The Marine Bio-Technologies Center of Innovation and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center co-hosted the event.

The “Taste of North Carolina” reception featured crab, trout, black bass ceviche, smoked sturgeon and caviar, all produced by North Carolina aquaculture companies.

Atlantic Caviar and Sturgeon, a Lenoir-based company producing Ossetra caviar from Russian sturgeon, as well as Siberian and Atlantic sturgeon, raises the fish in the naturally cooled, pure water of the NC mountains and fed a diet free of hormones and antibiotics. The aquaculture company, working with the N.C. Agricultural Foundation and North Carolina State University, began commercial harvest of the caviar and sturgeon at its FDA HAAP certified processing and smoking facility in 2012.

State of the art technology

Aqua Plantations farms Carolina Black Sea Bass and Striped Bass in seawater tanks using state-of-the-art technology at UNC-Wilmington’s Center for Marine Science coastal site and is developing a marine fish farm at the CREST Research Park near Wilmington. The company provides farm-to-chef fresh and iced bass direct to markets in the eastern U.S. and Canada.

Marshallberg Farms, located on Core Sound in eastern NC, raises Russian sturgeon in three indoor tanks. The facility is also the location of NCSU’s MARC (Marine Aquaculture Research Center) and Underground Farm.

Trout certified free of mercury, PCBs, pesticides or hormones

Shure Foods of Greenville, NC, provided crab fritters for the “Taste of North Carolina” reception. The company developed and patented a unique product made of raw crab with the help of a business loan and consulting support from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

The Sunburst Trout Farm of Canton, NC, donated a trout dip to the reception. The third-generation family owned and operated farm has been raising trout since 1948 in pure waters coming from Shiling Rocks National Wilderness in the North Carolina mountains. Its trout are certified lab tested free of PCBs, mercury and pesticides and are raised free of hormones and animal by-products.

Following remarks by UNCW Chancellor Jose “Zito” Sartarelli, Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo, NC Department of Commerce Chief of Staff Cecilia Holden, and NC Biotech Center President and CEO Doug Edgeton, the crowd of international attendees got back to the business of the evening – making contacts to further the ever increasing biotechnology sector. Conversations ranged from sea-based cosmetics to ground-breaking new drugs, industrial plankton production to commercial oyster farming.

Global investment funds present

Many CEOs and investment fund representatives came from around the world. Corina Moya Falcon of the Spanish Bank of Algae came from the Canary Islands seeking collaborators working in the new bioindustrial sector based on microalgae and cyanobacteria. Thad Simmons, former CEO of Novus International and now managing director of The Yield Lab, a small V.C. fund based in St. Louis, MO, came to Wilmington seeking the fund’s next class of innovative AgTech companies to mentor and support.

Dr. Pia Winberg, director and chief scientist of Australia-based Venus Shell Systems is at BioMarine 2015 looking for collaborators in developing new drugs from seaweed.

Stellar Biotechnologies COO Catherine Brisson came to talk about a Southern California sea snail whose blood contains potent immune system stimulants.

North Carolina companies are present at the conference as well. Steve Peterson, CEO of Cary-based TranaDiscovery, is there to look for collaborators in implementing his company’s unique anti-pathogens derived from algae that are proving effective against drug resistant strains of bacteria.

The BioMarine 2015 Conference continues through Wednesday at the Union Station building on the Cape Fear Community College campus in downtown Wilmington. CEO interviews and panels on biomarine innovations are streaming live on the homepage of the BioMarine website.