Joseph Rehmann – Climate-positive fish is possible and its eggs are delivered by drones

A conversation with Joseph Rehmann, co-founder of Victory Farms in Kenya, with the mission to be the world’s most sustainable fish business and provide high nutrition protein to the mass market in Africa. How do you go from being a happy but unfulfilled banker to co-founding one of the leading and largest animal protein companies in East Africa?

We unpack Joseph’s journey into fish farming—specifically tilapia, a species indigenous to the region- and how he and his company are proving that it can have a net positive impact on the environment, people, and finances. Of course, Victory Farms’ journey hasn’t been without challenges. Feed is obviously a challenge and led to starting their own feed mill, reducing import of soy and maize from abroad and experimenting with local feed ingredients and cold chain and spillage. Managing the cold chain has been another significant challenge—especially in the East African context, where stable and clean electricity is notoriously hard to come by. Yet, they managed to figure out solutions using AI and machine learning and reduced spillage to under 1%, a remarkable achievement in an industry where losses often reach 30–40%.

We also dive into their bold decision to outsource a critical part of their value chain: the growing of eggs. By partnering with local village entrepreneurs who manage their own ponds, they’ve created a system where harvested eggs are delivered to Victory Farms using drones. This isn’t just a flashy gadget; but makes scale possible. A single drone carrying up to 500,000 eggs completes a trip in six minutes—a journey that would take a cooled truck two hours, assuming a road exists at all.

Get ready for a conversation full of surprises, insights, and stories of leapfrogging challenges in scaling an animal protein business in East Africa.

This episode is part of the Regenerative Aquaculture series, supported by The Nest, a family office dedicated to building a more resilient food system through supporting natural solutions and innovative technologies that change the way we produce food.

WHY TILAPIA IS SO RELEVANT IN EAST AFRICA AS A HEALTHY PROTEIN

Joseph addresses the argument for vegetarian diets, emphasising the nutritional benefits of fish and the need for sustainable animal protein sources in Africa.

”If I can generalise a bit, because it’s different by country, but Africans are already the world’s leader at consuming plant protein as a primary source of protein, so you know. And if we look at WHO statistics, as you said, it’s not easy, and especially for a low-income citizen of the world, it’s not easy to supplement the last bits of one’s diet, whereas, you know, certain amino acids or micronutrients or minerals are missing, and fish does offer a very robust range of those amino acids and other nutrients.” Joseph Rehmann

“In Africa, in many parts of Africa, not all, of course, but tilapia is an important historical traditional food, and it’s almost completely gone from wild sources due to overfishing and illegal fishing intensification, all the stories we know. And so that’s had an impact on communities that have had to shift toward hoofed animal diets and overall, less nutritious diets.” Joseph Rehmann

FISH EGGS ARE DELIVERED TO VICTORY FARMS BY PARTNER GROWERS VIA DRONES

The company uses of drones for egg transportation, allowing for faster and more efficient delivery to remote areas.

”So, in order to address our biggest bottleneck to scale, a couple of years ago, we started to play with the idea, well, what happens […] if we integrate our community into it? […] We could train our community to produce our eggs for us, and we could source from them. And so again, it’s a bit of a radical idea. We tested it out with one partner. It went really well. And then we tested it out with a couple of partners. It went really well. We got a little bit of grant funding to help us cover the civil costs; long term, we think it can all be commercial financing, but we got some risk capital to help us, and then the next bottleneck we faced was, well, we can only service partners on roads; otherwise, we have to build roads, and that’s too expensive. And so, what we decided to pilot? We hired a local company here with a couple of drone pilots. We also hired a couple of our own drone pilots. And we said, well, what would happen if we could fly to the smallholder to, let’s call it, a pond partner? What would happen if we flew to the pond partner with a drone, picked up the eggs, and brought them back to our central hatchery? And so, we’ve tested it, and it is much cheaper and much faster.” Joseph Rehmann

WHAT LEAPFROGGING PROTEIN MEANS IN THE EAST AFRICAN CONTEXT

Joseph describes the company’s innovative cold chain system, which uses predictive algorithms and non-electrified coolers to achieve less than 1% spoilage.

”We stock 95% of that volume, and we sell out of fish every day. And so, the whole system, including trucks that turn over or any problem you can imagine, that whole system produces less than 1% spoilage. So compared to statistics, you might have heard of around 30, 40, or 50% post-harvest losses in fresh industries like ours; we’re achieving less than 1%, and we’re using a largely non-electrified cold chain, which is, of course, a much lower carbon footprint too.” Joseph Rehmann

”There are areas where we can leverage technology and capabilities to achieve a lower-cost system, which is also lower environmental cost, to be able to serve consumers. So that’s in a nutshell. That’s how our cold chain works.” Joseph Rehmann

WHY VICTORY FARMS STARTED ITS OWN FEED MILL

Victory Farms’ operations include three businesses in Kenya and Rwanda and the feed mill’s production capacity.

”We started conventional. We worked with our feed suppliers. They’ve invested in the region; we were able to slowly convert our feed to at least being produced locally, although a lot of the inputs are still imported, the maize and soy. Then we eventually built our own feed mill. And I think one of our biggest core moments was we decided to put the feed mill on top of a geothermal well, right before a huge energy price spike, and then Ukraine and everything else, and Kenya is not exactly linked to global markets. But of course, there’s some relationship in energy costs. And so, we signed this deal for a long-term PPA on renewable power, even though the overall cost of the project was more than if we put it on conventional power in a different location. Well, fast forward 24 months before we’d even turned the mill on, and we had a $5 million competitive advantage over everyone else in energy cost alone.” Joseph Rehmann

OTHER POINTS DISCUSSED

Koen and Joseph also talked about:

  • Breeding programs and future plans
  • Collaborating with conservation organizations to protect the Great African Lakes
  • New standards for sustainable practices globally

LINKS:

LINKED INTERVIEWS:

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The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

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