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‘The Angus of Oysters’

UConn Today – When seafood entrepreneur Keegan Jalbert’s startup AccessFlora won the Wolff New Venture Competition on Tuesday night, it took him a few minutes to compose himself.

It’s not every day that a new entrepreneur gets a $40,000 check and $5,000 in pro bono services.

“I had been running on 24 hours of full nerves, and I felt like a tank that is pressure rated. I had surpassed what my body could tolerate,’’ says Jalbert ’23 (CLAS) ’27 MS. “When they announced that I had won the top prize, I was calm at first and then I was crying. And I’m not a crier. The recognition is so powerful.’’

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The World is His Oyster

UConn Today – Graduate student Keegan Jalbert ’23 (CLAS) ’27 MS has always been interested in agriculture, food, and innovation. Today he is finding new ways to grow oysters and share his love of seafood with customers who live far from the ocean.

Jalbert is the founder of AccessFlora, a sustainable aquaculture company with a proprietary omega-3 aquafeed for raising oysters in purified water at a hatchery. The outcome is a larger and healthier shellfish that isn’t confined to the coast nor dependent upon favorable ocean conditions.

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