Value-added nutrition
Turning the catch into shelf-stable, high-protein foods near the dock instead of shipping the value away.
Where the Reef touches the water.
The mission reads as one sentence — uplift communities by building aquatic food systems that work in harmony with nature. These are the places where that sentence becomes concrete, steel and cold storage.
United States · The Home Water
The Louisiana Green Reef Project
Venice, Louisiana
Concept & planning — working document, April 2025
Venice sits at the very end of the road, where the Mississippi River finally meets the Gulf — a working port that is already a gateway to one of the richest seafood-producing regions in the world.
The Louisiana Green Reef Project positions the Port of Venice as a seafood innovation hub: value-added nutrition products, zero-waste processing that recovers value from what the industry currently throws away, and modernised coastal logistics — built with and for the fishing families who already work this water.
It is the Foundation’s home-water project. Jarvis Green was raised in Donaldsonville, upriver on this same Mississippi; Oceans 97 was built on Gulf shrimp. Venice is where the company’s story and the Foundation’s mission meet.
Zero-waste processing
Seafood waste recovery that turns byproduct into product — and jobs.
Coastal mobility & logistics
Modern cold chain and port logistics, so quality survives the journey.
#1
Louisiana’s rank in child food insecurity
Feeding America
#3
in senior food insecurity
Feeding America
35%
of harvested fish lost or wasted
as cited by the Foundation
Louisiana leads the nation in child food insecurity while sitting beside some of the richest fishing grounds on Earth. Closing that gap — locally, with local hands — is the whole point.
Why Venice
Nigeria · The Deep Harbor
ARISE Fish & Seafood Processing Centre
Ibaka, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria
Concept & planning — first site assessments complete
Ibaka, on Nigeria’s Atlantic coast, has one of the deepest natural shores in the country — big vessels already land here. What the community lacks is not fish; it is what happens after the catch.
The ARISE centre is the Foundation’s integrated model in full: an innovation lab, a commercial kitchen, a processing plant and a small-scale fishing co-operative under one roof — ringed by clean-water desalination, cold-chain storage, and waste recycling that turns byproducts into value.
The heart of the plan is people. Nigeria’s traditional smoked-fish craft — held largely by women — meets next-generation processing: a cooking co-operative built around women’s employment at higher wages, workforce training from food safety to digital skills, and a digital archive so indigenous processing knowledge is preserved and owned by the community that created it.
Innovation lab & training
From safe-serve certification to app development — STEM skills that transfer to any industry.
Women’s co-operative
A cooking co-op built on Nigeria’s smoked-fish expertise, employing women at higher annual wages.
Next-gen smoked fish
Fresh, canned and value-added smoked fish — traditional craft, modern processing and traceability.
91%
of fishers work in small-scale fisheries
World Bank — half are women
50%
of the fish Nigeria eats is imported
despite rich local waters
49%
of children under 5 stunted, wasted or overweight
as cited by the Foundation
Blue foods already feed and employ this coast. The ARISE centre keeps the value — the processing, the jobs, the knowledge — on the shore where the fish are landed, instead of exporting it with the catch.
Why Ibaka
What's Next
The next shores.
More sites are in planning across the US and West Africa. Every one is built the same way: public, private and academic partners aligned around a community’s own strengths. If your organisation belongs in that lineup, reach out.