3 questions for Jérémie Cognard from Agriloops

Each month, find out more about our members in 3 questions! This month, Jérémie Cognard, from Agriloops, answers our questions.

What is the nature of your business?

At Agriloops, we take our inspiration from nature and design unique farms that combine the breeding of prawns with market gardening thanks to our innovative technologies.
This complementarity is called aquaponics!
Our farms produce not only delicious prawns, but also original and tasty vegetables. One of Agriloops' special features is that we have mastered this technique for the first time in a saltwater environment. Thus, we produce marine aquaculture species, such as prawns, and vegetables that have more taste thanks to our particular environment.

A first experimental phase in the laboratory started in 2016 in order to create our proof of concept, to show that our aquaponics worked in a salty environment and to dimension our pilot farm, now in production since 2019. This first farm allowed us to master our organic model, to set up our technical itineraries, to select the best design and to validate our marketing strategy.
We are now working on the deployment of our demonstrator, Mangrove #1, which has a production capacity of about twenty tons of prawns and about forty tons of vegetables. Our objective, in 2021, is therefore to find the right partners to accompany us on this key step and to start construction by the end of the year.

Who are your products/services intended for?

First of all, we position ourselves as a producer of prawns and fresh vegetables. We offer our products to different types of customers: Wholesalers, supermarkets, fishmongers and chefs of gourmet restaurants.
Our ambition will then be to deploy a network of farms around major French and European cities, especially in the form of franchises.

Why are innovation and research important in your sector of activity?

The transition from fresh water to salt water represents a strong innovation in the field. It was therefore necessary to work for several months in the laboratory and then in our pilot farm to show our proof of concept and to lift the existing locks for the implementation of a system in a saltwater environment.
Today identified as a DeepTech sector players such as BPI, we continue our research in order to improve, among other things, the productivity of our system.
In order to carry out our research programs, it is fundamental for us to be accompanied. Thanks to its expertise in the aquatic products sector, the Aquimer cluster supports us in our innovation and development projects, in particular by helping us with the search for partners and funding.
In addition, the extensive network of the Aquimer Cluster allows us to exchange with complementary sector players (companies, centers of expertise, research laboratories, etc.) who work on development and innovation in the sector.

For more information, go to the page of this member!