MEMO ON SPIRULINA
✓ This cyanobacterium, often mistaken for an alga, is considered the food of the future
✓ Super nutritious: 3x more protein than beef, 12 vitamins, 11 minerals, 18 amino acids
✓ Reduces fatigue, improves athletic performance, boosts the immune system
✓ Good for the environment: requires little water and space, absorbs large amounts of CO2, produces oxygen (especially compared with animal proteins)
Urban farms on rooftops and elsewhere
When you have an appointment in Bangkok, it’s better to allow plenty of time. This little town of 20 million people is especially known for its traffic jams that could drive any yogi crazy. So we arrive about half an hour late at the HQ of Energaia, a Thai startup that has been growing spirulina on the (numerous) rooftops of the city for more than three years.
Klaus Rosenberg, Energaia’s operations director, welcomes us in an open-plan office where dozens of young engineers are busy on their laptops. From around the world, the team studies and develops spirulina cultures in unique bioreactors.
The founder, Saumil Shah, set out to produce a sustainable and highly nutritious food source in a context where soil pollution is a major issue. Indeed, in Thailand as in the rest of Southeast Asia, the soil contains heavy metals, notably arsenic.
In terms of agriculture, spirulina therefore represents an interesting alternative, because it does not require soil, nor much space, but only a little water and plenty of sunlight!
Very nutritious and low in energy consumption, it quickly meets the nutritional needs of those who cultivate it, and is sold in various forms. While it’s increasingly discussed in France, urban agriculture is recent in Asia.
Energaia has started installing urban spirulina farms on hotel rooftops, which cook it in their restaurants and sell the rest.
The startup offers its clients a unique technology for cultivating spirulina in bioreactors, expertise in setting up urban farms, and innovative products made from fresh spirulina.
We’re fascinated by the approach, because Bangkok is indeed teeming with buildings, skyscrapers, residential and office towers, whose roofs are both unused and sunlit. Klaus takes us up onto Energaia’s roofs to show us how it works!
The bioreactors designed by the startup consist of a plastic tank, a mesh, and a lid. They measure 1.2 m in height, 60 cm in diameter, and can hold 250 L of water. The water is pre-treated and alkaline so as to nourish the spirulina.
A pump creates a current and captures oxygen. About every 10 days, harvesting takes place. The yield varies and can produce between 7 g and 14 g of spirulina powder per day per barrel.
To learn more about spirulina harvesting, read our feature on an artisanal spirulina farm in the Southwest.
According to Klaus, these urban farms help reduce the carbon footprint of the food chain, optimize unused spaces, and are perfectly suited to small-scale needs such as those of hotels, offices, and restaurants.
In the case of larger-scale production aimed at higher yields, rooftops are less suitable. As for the one we visit, it is used to conduct research. It’s very, very hot on the roofs of Bangkok, so we don’t linger, and we head back down to the lab this time.
Inside the laboratory, Energaia analyzes its spirulina daily as well as that of some of its clients (those who own fewer than 500 barrels). The spirulina they process contains less water than the majority on the market. “We sell more spirulina than water,” Klaus assures us.
The team also created their own spirulina brand, aptly named Skyline Spirulina, and sells fresh and powdered spirulina, linguini, crackers and even ice cream! The lemon spirulina sorbet is to die for 😍
Spirulina to reduce poverty and address the challenges of the 21st century?
Growing spirulina on the roofs of Bangkok to feed hotels, vegan restaurants and gyms is nice, but it’s very elitist. From the beginning, Energaia has been committed to a socio-environmental approach, with the UN’s goals on reducing poverty and improving access to food as its guide.
By 2050, we should reach 10 billion people on Earth. In the current ecological context, we will need to produce even more food with the same land area and using less water. As we’ve seen, spirulina, the best of the plant proteins, has a low energy impact and offers a healthy and ecological alternative to the nutrients found in meat.
As a result, the startup is simultaneously developing spirulina farm programs in rural areas in Thailand, Indonesia, and Bangladesh. One of these projects, called Creating Spirulina Microentrepreneurs to Solve Malnutrition, was partly funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The idea: train women from low-income backgrounds to grow spirulina and provide them with the bioreactors, so they can meet their families’ nutritional and economic needs. The spirulina produced in this way is consumed by the families, and the remainder is bought by Energaia.
To learn more about spirulina and its benefits, check out our in-depth feature here!
We never imagined we would find spirulina, not only fresh but above all delicious in Bangkok, and yet! Another initiative that inspires us enormously and isn’t limited to meeting the needs of eco hipsters 😉
