Winners of the first Gulf Coast Innovation Challenge are joined with members of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation. Mark Pritchett (l-r), president and CEO, Gulf Coast Community Foundation; Chris Cogan, CEO, Healthy Earth, and team leader; Healthy Earth-Gulf Coast; Jeff Sedacca, National Fish and Seafood, and team member; Healthy Earth-Gulf Coast, Ed Chiles, CEO, The Chiles Group, and team member; Healthy Earth-Gulf Coast; and Ben Hanan, Board Chair, Gulf Coast Community Foundation. Photo: Gulf Coast Community Foundation
by Gulf Coast Community Foundation staff
An ambitious project to build a sustainable seafood industry with international distribution in the Sarasota-Manatee region while reviving a heritage fishing community and adding new jobs through a value-added processing plant has landed the top award in the first Gulf Coast Innovation Challenge.
Dubbed “Healthy Earth–Gulf Coast: Sustainable Seafood System,” the diverse team of private and nonprofit partners from natural-foods business Healthy Earth, a local seafood restaurant group that champions sustainability, the Cortez fishing community, and scientists from Mote Marine Laboratory, among others, was selected by Gulf Coast Community Foundation’s Board of Directors as the inaugural Innovation Challenge winner. Their project, which already earned a $25,000 grant to develop its business plan as one of five finalists in the Challenge, will now receive up to $375,000 more in grant funding from Gulf Coast as it puts its plan into action.
Rendering of Healthy Earth’s proposed Cortez fishery processing plant, part of the winning entry. Rendering: Healthy Earth
The Gulf Coast Community Foundation is an organization committed to transformation through bold and proactive philanthropy. It is a public charity created in 1995 through the sale of the Venice, FL Hospital. Since then, it has became the philanthropic home of more than 600 families who have established charitable funds with investments of more than $208 million in grants in the areas of health and human services, civic and economic development, education, arts and culture, and the environment.
Healthy Earth–Gulf Coast’s winning project aims to build a thriving local seafood industry—initially based on production of regionally abundant but long overlooked mullet—through a combination of sustainable-fishery certification, vastly improved utilization of catch, construction of a state-of-the-art processing plant in Manatee County, and development of new and high-end international markets for locally sourced seafood and other products. The team envisions expanding its system to multiple species, and in the process would create new economic opportunities in local fishing communities and preserve centuries-old cultural heritage while negating environmental impacts of discarding millions of pounds in unused catch each year.
Cogan (l-r), Chiles and Sedacca wait to be introduced as the winners of the first-ever Gulf Coast Innovation Challenge. Photo: Gulf Coast Community Foundation
“Healthy Earth and our partners are committed to conserving Sarasota Bay fisheries, preventing the underutilization of mullet, and building a billion-dollar sustainable seafood industry here on the Gulf Coast,” said Chris Cogan, CEO of Healthy Earth and leader of the winning team. “We viewed the twin challenges of productivity and sustainability as an open-ended opportunity to innovate. I think that met the spirit and vision of Gulf Coast Community Foundation’s competition.”
According to Gulf Coast President and CEO Mark Pritchett, the winners’ bold aspirations backed by a plan and the partners to realize them dovetailed with the foundation’s priorities in launching an incentive-grant challenge centered on the region’s marine science and technology cluster. “From the beginning, we said this Innovation Challenge was about saving our seas, feeding our communities, and growing our Blue Economy,” noted Pritchett. “As a country, we import 90 percent of the seafood we consume, and here in Florida, we buy over $3 billion of seafood from overseas. Healthy Earth–Gulf Coast has laid out a plan that addresses those imbalances, and we think the regional impact could be transformational.”
A Win for Marine Science
A major partner in the project, Mote Marine Laboratory, came out a winner in more ways than one. Besides the Healthy Earth team, Mote scientists had lead roles with three of the other finalists.
“This Innovation Challenge has raised the world-class research enterprise of Mote to a new level of visibility and potential,” said Dr. Michael P. Crosby, president and CEO of Mote. Photo: Mote
“This Innovation Challenge has raised the world-class research enterprise of Mote to a new level of visibility and potential,” said Dr. Michael P. Crosby, president and CEO of Mote. “We’re delighted that Mote’s scientific expertise was instrumental for the winning project, which will develop innovative technology to sustainably utilize the outstanding fisheries in our own backyard. Just as importantly, each of the four finalist projects in which Mote played such a significant role has helped transform exciting marine science into ‘shovel-ready’ opportunities for investors—whether they’re interested in developing new medicines from the sea, preserving dwindling freshwater resources, or transforming seafood production to help feed the world.”
Earlier this month, a panel of local business, investment, and technology experts convened by Gulf Coast reviewed plans and listened to pitches from the five Innovation Challenge finalist teams. The panel then made a recommendation to Gulf Coast’s Board of Directors, which heard the final presentation from Healthy Earth this past weekend. Members of the review panel were Ping Faulhaber, executive director of the Suncoast Science Center; Janis Fawn, Gulf Coast Board member and retired telecom executive; Jeff Hazelton, president and CTO of BioLucid; Rod Hershberger, CEO of PGT Industries; Dennis McGillicuddy, philanthropist and retired cable TV executive; Jeff McGrath, owner of business-advisory firm DRTM Ventures; and Keith Monda, philanthropist and retired president and COO of Coach, Inc.
Healthy Earth’s closed-loop sustainable system illustration. Illustration: Healthy Earth
“Our panelists agreed that several of these projects stand a good chance of going on to much success, which our Board loved to hear,” said Gulf Coast’s Pritchett. “What really drew them to the winning project, though, was the near-term impact this sustainable seafood system could have on our region’s economy, its environment, and our identity.”
Gulf Coast Community Foundation launched the $500,000 Gulf Coast Innovation Challenge in February 2015 at an event featuring X PRIZE founder Peter Diamandis. Initially, 44 different teams from the private, nonprofit, and public sectors submitted ideas, of which more than 30 completed full applications. In July, Gulf Coast selected five teams as finalists and awarded each a $25,000 grant to develop a prototype and prepare a pitch of its business plan. All of the original Challengers’ submissions, including short videos of their proposals, remain available online at GulfCoastChallenge.org.
Pritchett also praised technology partner atLarge, Inc., for its role in the Challenge. “Anand Pallegar and his team were invaluable partners in the Gulf Coast Innovation Challenge,” said Pritchett. “Working with such an innovative group to develop and launch our first incentive-grant challenge was key to its success.”
Hello my name is Percy D. I am a tribal member of the United Houma Nation. Having a substantial seafood industry is the most important issue to myself and my people. besides Coastal Restoration, in Louisiana. I have designed and created an Industrial sized Oyster Farm which would help the oyster industry fill the gap from imports. My newly created system also has a a hurricane lock down plan. The phase 4 hurricane resistance plan helps my oyster farm to obtain a harvest every year, despite any natural or man made distasters. I would like to discuss this issue with anyone who would like to help the native people of Louisiana make a difference to save our heritage and culture.