28 min
Joseph Rehmann, CEO & Founder - Victory Farms - Feeding millions of Africans with fish protein Built Tough
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- Entrepreneurship
After completing his MBA program, Joseph (Joe) Rehmann got to work on a three-month aquaculture project in Ghana. Little did he know, he would become the CFO of the Accra-based Tropo Farms, a tilapia farm, for three years. While in Ghana, Joe learned invaluable lessons on scaling an aquaculture business, and for his next venture, he sought to create an end-to-end ‘protein plant’, a sustainable source of affordable fish protein for millions of Africans.
In 2015, Joe and his co-founder launched Victory Farms on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya in an ambitious move to build a fish value chain from scratch. Today, Victory Farms produces more than 10,000 tons of tilapia in Kenya and Rwanda. It estimates that by shifting consumers to fish, they prevent 160,000 tons of carbon emissions.
In this episode, Joe talks about taking a big bet on Lake Victoria for tilapia farming, the importance of discovering your company’s unique DNA, why vertical integration is key to de-risking scale, and the gutsy decision to run a no electricity distribution system for their fish.
After completing his MBA program, Joseph (Joe) Rehmann got to work on a three-month aquaculture project in Ghana. Little did he know, he would become the CFO of the Accra-based Tropo Farms, a tilapia farm, for three years. While in Ghana, Joe learned invaluable lessons on scaling an aquaculture business, and for his next venture, he sought to create an end-to-end ‘protein plant’, a sustainable source of affordable fish protein for millions of Africans.
In 2015, Joe and his co-founder launched Victory Farms on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya in an ambitious move to build a fish value chain from scratch. Today, Victory Farms produces more than 10,000 tons of tilapia in Kenya and Rwanda. It estimates that by shifting consumers to fish, they prevent 160,000 tons of carbon emissions.
In this episode, Joe talks about taking a big bet on Lake Victoria for tilapia farming, the importance of discovering your company’s unique DNA, why vertical integration is key to de-risking scale, and the gutsy decision to run a no electricity distribution system for their fish.
28 min