A good start for 2026

I wanted to take a few minutes to share updates on ChimanaTech, my outlook on the EU aquaculture sector, and what this means for innovative companies working in aquaculture, R&D, and production systems.

First, the headlines.

Blue Armor Collaboration: Aquaculture Vaccine Development

Blue Armor is an exciting Belgian startup developing vaccines for aquaculture. Since my time at Landing Aquaculture, I have learned that innovative early-stage startups are my preferred partners. They combine passion, vision, a strong do-it-yourself mindset, and flexibility. These are qualities that fit perfectly with my iterative, creative, and fast-paced (and sometimes messy) way of working.

These teams also benefit from having clear solutions, technical roadmaps, and business structures defined early on.

With ChimanaTech’s support, Blue Armor is progressing toward fundraising, strengthening its business structure, and most importantly, setting up its aquaculture vaccine testing facility in 2026. Like most early-stage ventures, this involves making smart decisions under tight budgets, spatial constraints, and logistical limitations.

I will be bringing my lean and mean approach, focusing on what matters now, prioritizing impact, and applying design and engineering creativity where required.

For me, this means working on yet another project aimed at making a real impact on the future of aquaculture. Supporting founders while advancing the sector is exactly what ChimanaTech is about.

AquaSnow Progress: Larval Nutrition and Hatchery Trials

We had to postpone our end-of-2025 AquaSnow trial due to an unexpected shortage of seabream larvae. The trial is now planned for February 2026, and we expect to secure larvae by then.

On the positive side, this delay gave us time to engage with commercial hatcheries interested in testing the product, and the effort paid off. In January, we will be shipping our first AquaSnow testing samples to three hatcheries across Europe.

Our testing strategy follows a proven, stepwise approach:

1. Test feed acceptance with a small number of larvae

2. If successful, evaluate rotifer replacement in a small population

3. If all goes well, we can test in commercial-sized tanks

I will be sharing further updates here and on the AquaSnow blog.

Behind the scenes, AquaSnow continues to scale production capacity and iterate on feed formulation to improve performance and consistency.

HorAIzon Push: Microbiome Analysis for RAS Systems

In this post, Evgeni Levin from HorAIzon and I propose that RAS farmers take a closer look together with me at a Dutch company called HorAIzon, and explore the possibility of testing their technology on RAS sludge samples.

HorAIzon has developed a method to rapidly analyze functional microbial communities (enterotypes) in faecal samples from farmed animals. I believe there is potential to apply this technique to studying microbial communities in RAS sludge, opening new possibilities for monitoring system health and performance.

EU Aquaculture Outlook: Opportunities for Service Providers and Innovators

Over the past few years, I have noticed the emergence of a valley of death for aquaculture companies. Medium-scale operations face high fixed costs but often struggle with limited access to capital and this is of course, amplified in high-CAPEX projects such as indoor RAS. This trend has also affectes service providers in the sector.

As large companies grow, they integrate more processes in-house. Engineering, consulting, and R&D know-how, which are now more widely available, are valuable assets to integrate internally. The do-it-yourself approach common in Mediterranean aquaculture, where producers rely on internal teams for engineering, development, and R&D, is starting to take hold in Northern Europe, historically more dependent on external consultants and subcontractors.

The driver is largely economic. Lower labor costs in the South make it feasible to hire large internal teams for operations of thousands of tons per year. In the North, as farms become larger and more efficient, companies can absorb the added fixed costs of internal teams while keeping know-how in-house and retaining control over project decisions.

For service providers, it seems that the paths are 1)specialize, 2) minimize fixed costs, and stay agile, or 3) consider joining a large company as part of their internal team.

Where micro companies and independent professionals shine, and where large and medium players often cannot, is in rapidly testing innovative ideas at relatively low cost, often leveraging EU grants and funding programs. That is exactly where ChimanaTech operates and that is where I find the fun to be.

Interested in working together? Email me