This is fantastic! Thanks for publishing this update, as well as for all the work you’ve done over the past two years. I’ve been very impressed at how well SWP has done at securing commitments and creating partnerships within the industry. It seems like you all have a very strong and potentially very cost-effective plan for next steps, and I’m excited to dig further into the latest research updates.
A few questions:
The BOTEC you published a few months ago estimated a cost-effectiveness of about 4000 shrimp stunned per dollar per year. Can you talk about some of the factors that led to the updated estimate being 1500? Is the 1500 shrimp/$/year number accounting for more of the overhead costs associated with the stunners program?
The ASC consultation document uses the acronym UoC a bunch. Can you explain what that means?
Is there a video of the panel discussion from the Global Shrimp Forum?
I also continue to be surprised that there hasn’t been more effort within the alt protein space on cultivated or plant-based shrimp paste. As you noted in the alternative shrimp report, shrimp paste seems like not only a huge market, but also one of the easier animal products to replicate from a taste and texture perspective. That might be a really promising area for other orgs to focus on.
Hi MHR! Thanks for your kind words, we’re really excited about entering this next phase :)
Regarding your questions:
The calculation is the same, but the number we’re reporting is different, this is due to a few factors:
~4,000/$/year is the actual cost-effectiveness of our stunners program to date, not including overheads other than the cost of the stunners themselves (1B / $247.5K)
~1,500/$/year in contrast, is the minimum cost-effectiveness of our stunners program going forward, which we commit to purchasing if the producer commits to stunning a minimum of 100M shrimps per year (100M / $65,000 = ~1,500).
Historically producers have committed to more than that, so we tend to say 1,500+ /$/year, because the actual number can fluctuate depending on the producer commitment
And just for further clarity, SWP’s overall cost-effectiveness (~1,300/$/year) is the cost-effectiveness of our stunners program to date while also factoring in SWP’s overheads to date (1B / ($525K+$247.5K))
It’s worth noting that in future our stunners program will likely become the majority of our budget (rather than overheads), so it’s likely SWP’s overall cost-effectiveness will increase as a result
By the way, the Guesstimate model builds on our original BOTEC spreadsheet, so the 4,000 number can also be seen in Guesstimate, as well as how that changes to 1,300 once the overheads are factored in
UoC stands for “Unit of Certification”, basically just whatever is being certified by ASC, typically the farm itself (I’ve updated the linked doc now to clarify that—thanks for spotting our jargon!)
There is, but unfortunately it’s only available to users with a login (i.e. those who bought a ticket) - we’ll email to ask if we’re allowed to download and share it
Regarding shrimp paste—this is definitely something I’d be most excited for someone to work on, but as I understand it there currently are quite a number of shrimp paste alternatives on the market—both in terms of just general vegan substitutes, but also explicitly vegan shrimp paste I don’t know how widely available those alternatives are where shrimp paste is consumed the most, but my current sense is that the solution is likely more along the lines of cultural change, rather than technical innovation (though I’m sure a mix of the two would help) Though I’m not super confident in this, and hopefully we’ll be able to share more insights once our volunteer has finished the report :)
Thanks for the information! That makes sense regarding the 1500/$/year number.
On shrimp paste, it’s hard for me to know what the landscape looks like without more firsthand cultural experience/context. There are lots of vegan alternatives to other animal products, but improved cultivated or plant-based meat is still generally recognized as an important part of reducing e.g. hamburger consumption.
Agreed—for me the biggest piece of the puzzle I don’t currently understand is the cultural experience… Our volunteer writing the report is from the Philippines, so although we want the report to be global, we’re hoping to have a sort of case study (maybe conduct a few interviews or something) on the Philippines to add some on-the-ground context that would be difficult to get from desk-based research alone.
Also, someone from EA Philippines also once told me that shrimp paste is often fed to whale sharks, in order to keep them present in the waters year-round to support the whale shark tourism industry, and I’m not sure how many similar examples of complicating factors like this there are...
This is fantastic! Thanks for publishing this update, as well as for all the work you’ve done over the past two years. I’ve been very impressed at how well SWP has done at securing commitments and creating partnerships within the industry. It seems like you all have a very strong and potentially very cost-effective plan for next steps, and I’m excited to dig further into the latest research updates.
A few questions:
The BOTEC you published a few months ago estimated a cost-effectiveness of about 4000 shrimp stunned per dollar per year. Can you talk about some of the factors that led to the updated estimate being 1500? Is the 1500 shrimp/$/year number accounting for more of the overhead costs associated with the stunners program?
The ASC consultation document uses the acronym UoC a bunch. Can you explain what that means?
Is there a video of the panel discussion from the Global Shrimp Forum?
I also continue to be surprised that there hasn’t been more effort within the alt protein space on cultivated or plant-based shrimp paste. As you noted in the alternative shrimp report, shrimp paste seems like not only a huge market, but also one of the easier animal products to replicate from a taste and texture perspective. That might be a really promising area for other orgs to focus on.
Hi MHR! Thanks for your kind words, we’re really excited about entering this next phase :)
Regarding your questions:
The calculation is the same, but the number we’re reporting is different, this is due to a few factors:
~4,000/$/year is the actual cost-effectiveness of our stunners program to date, not including overheads other than the cost of the stunners themselves (1B / $247.5K)
~1,500/$/year in contrast, is the minimum cost-effectiveness of our stunners program going forward, which we commit to purchasing if the producer commits to stunning a minimum of 100M shrimps per year (100M / $65,000 = ~1,500).
Historically producers have committed to more than that, so we tend to say 1,500+ /$/year, because the actual number can fluctuate depending on the producer commitment
And just for further clarity, SWP’s overall cost-effectiveness (~1,300/$/year) is the cost-effectiveness of our stunners program to date while also factoring in SWP’s overheads to date (1B / ($525K+$247.5K))
It’s worth noting that in future our stunners program will likely become the majority of our budget (rather than overheads), so it’s likely SWP’s overall cost-effectiveness will increase as a result
Most of these numbers can also be seen in the Guesstimate model (except how we arrived at the ~1,500, which is instead in the stunners funding proposal)
By the way, the Guesstimate model builds on our original BOTEC spreadsheet, so the 4,000 number can also be seen in Guesstimate, as well as how that changes to 1,300 once the overheads are factored in
UoC stands for “Unit of Certification”, basically just whatever is being certified by ASC, typically the farm itself (I’ve updated the linked doc now to clarify that—thanks for spotting our jargon!)
There is, but unfortunately it’s only available to users with a login (i.e. those who bought a ticket) - we’ll email to ask if we’re allowed to download and share it
Regarding shrimp paste—this is definitely something I’d be most excited for someone to work on, but as I understand it there currently are quite a number of shrimp paste alternatives on the market—both in terms of just general vegan substitutes, but also explicitly vegan shrimp paste
I don’t know how widely available those alternatives are where shrimp paste is consumed the most, but my current sense is that the solution is likely more along the lines of cultural change, rather than technical innovation (though I’m sure a mix of the two would help)
Though I’m not super confident in this, and hopefully we’ll be able to share more insights once our volunteer has finished the report :)
Thanks for the information! That makes sense regarding the 1500/$/year number.
On shrimp paste, it’s hard for me to know what the landscape looks like without more firsthand cultural experience/context. There are lots of vegan alternatives to other animal products, but improved cultivated or plant-based meat is still generally recognized as an important part of reducing e.g. hamburger consumption.
Agreed—for me the biggest piece of the puzzle I don’t currently understand is the cultural experience… Our volunteer writing the report is from the Philippines, so although we want the report to be global, we’re hoping to have a sort of case study (maybe conduct a few interviews or something) on the Philippines to add some on-the-ground context that would be difficult to get from desk-based research alone.
Also, someone from EA Philippines also once told me that shrimp paste is often fed to whale sharks, in order to keep them present in the waters year-round to support the whale shark tourism industry, and I’m not sure how many similar examples of complicating factors like this there are...