Cultivating marine microalgae at scale for the exclusive production of low-value per kilogram protein-rich food ingredient products is economically challenging as the cost of operations can readily exceed revenues, even in Australia which has plentiful sunshine and clean tidal rivers to allow cost-effective outdoor raceway pond farming. The solution is to apply the principle of co-production, where a species of marine microalgae is cultivated to extract a high-value product to ensure farm profitability, together with a low-value protein-rich by-product.

Qponics is applying this principle to co-produce high-value EPA omega-3 and low-value high-protein biomass by-product from Nannochloropsis on its algae farm.