Fish for All

_**Fresh seafood, such as salmon, is highly nutritious and rich in protein and essential nutrients such as Omega-3\. Each year Scottish fishing industry lands over 430 thousand tonnes of seafood with a gross value of £560 million making up to 5% of Scotland's GDP and continues to grow. However, fresh seafood has short shelf-life and on average over 4% is spoiled during transportation. The short shelf-life and expensive cold-chain transportation lead to high supermarket prices, making it unaffordable to many, particularly those on lower incomes.**_

_**The single type of carrier of all catches that are currently used by 99% of fishery industry is expanded polystyrene boxes (EPS) with fresh ice. EPS is often mislabelled as biodegradable. Although theoretically, this may be true, in real terms, it takes hundreds of years for EPS to be naturally degraded which results in high volumes of pollution from this supply chain.**_

_**Our vision is to create a packaging solution that increases the shelf life of salmon by up to 21 days while reducing the use of EPS with a more sustainable solution which meets the needs of the end-to-end supply chain. The environmental profile of the product will be further enhanced by the use of a range of bio-mass wastes in the new transportation system.**_

_**The disruptive solution contains three core elements, 1) seafood wash (used on seafood prior to packaging) made from natural sources to preserve the freshness, 2) waterproof corrugated boxes (with reusable ice packs) with anti-microbial coating for seafood packaging, 3) an exact replica EPS box using a composite plastic made up of recycled plastic and strawberry plants which currently go to landfill.**_

_**The economic and environmental advantages of the solution are significant. Increased shelf life of product reduces the waste and translates into cheaper food for all. Being able to increase shelf life of perishable product reduces pressure on producers, allowing them to maximise their crops, which in turn gives them a higher rate of return. The use of corrugated and a composite packaging system, eradicates the landfill and waste problems caused by EPS. These are world solutions to huge environmental problems.**_

_**Reducing the spoilage of the seafood during the transportation, it will bring down on the unit price of the seafood and make highly nutritious food with high quality protein and healthy fat contents such as Omega-3 available and affordable for a wider population.**_