Origin by Ocean reaches the final of a Nordic innovation competition
The Finnish company Origin by Ocean will represent Finland in the Nordic Innovation Award 2025 organised by the Nordic industrial property offices. The competition rewards responsible innovations protected by intellectual property rights. One candidate from each of the five Nordic countries will participate in the final, which will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 10 April 2025.
More information on the Nordic Innovation Award is available on the competition page.
The finalist was selected by the Finnish jury, which also awarded two honourable mentions for innovations by Coolbrook Ltd and Solar Foods Oyj.
Read more below about the award-winning companies and their innovations.
Origin by Ocean Oy (finalist)
Origin by Ocean’s innovation is a patented biorefinery process, which utilises noxious algal blooms and responsibly cultivated seaweed as a raw material.
The innovation is based on a regenerative value chain in which environmentally hazardous algal blooms caused by eutrophication are removed from oceans. These are refined into valuable speciality chemicals, which offer a sustainable alternative to fossil-based and environmentally hazardous chemicals for cosmetics, foodstuff, fertilizers and other industries.
Origin by Ocean’s solution combines sustainable development, circular economy and commercial viability. It helps reduce nutrient loading in seas and provides livelihoods and earning opportunities in village and town communities affected by the eutrophication of the seas.
For industry, the innovation presents an opportunity to replace fossil raw materials with biobased and biodegradable raw materials. This reduces the environmental load caused by product manufacturing and use.
Coolbrook Ltd (awarded an honourable mention)
Coolbrook is a Finnish engineering company that aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the industrial fields that conventionally pollute the environment, such as the production of petrochemistry, chemistry, iron, steel, and cement. Coolbrook’s technology has the potential to reach process temperatures of 1700ºC for high gas quantities, and it can used in processes that have previously been impossible to electrify. The additional benefits of the technology include the possibility to recycle gas heating equipment, an efficiency of more than 90% for electricity and heat, and the ability to increase the gas pressure and function as a combined heater/blower.
Solar Foods Oyj (awarded an honourable mention)
The technology company Solar Foods wants to commercialise its food raw material, designed to replace food of animal origin, and its patented technology platform, hydrogen fermentation, that will be used to produce the raw material.
The company’s first commercialised product is Solein®, a high-protein powder based on a unicellular microbe that occurs in nature. It has only a fraction of the environmental impact of meat production. The company’s mission is to disconnect food production from land use and conventional agriculture. The technology developed by Solar Foods offers a new opportunity to improve the longevity, price and quality stability, and availability of food raw materials.
For further information, please contact
Olli Ilmarinen
Development Specialist
Finnish Patent and Registration Office
Tel. +358 29 509 5236