Agricultural engineering (LSE:ANIC) is a penny stock that has fallen 25% since July and 60% over five years. Shareholders didn’t have much to cheer about.
However, Chairman Jim Mellon clearly sees the value as 6p per share. According to my data provider, he spent a total of £168,488 buying shares on two separate occasions in February. This was the first significant insider buying activity in a year.
Mellon is clearly optimistic, then. Should I follow him and add some stocks to my own portfolio?
Image source: Getty Images
Strong progress
As a quick recap, Agronomics is a venture capital firm with a market capitalization of £71m focused on the emerging field of cellular agriculture. Often called “clean meat,” meat and fish are grown from cells rather than killed for consumption.
Beyond the ethical benefits, this technology makes it “It is possible to grow meat quickly, cleanly and locally without the need for importsFood chain security is becoming more important for countries, as is concern about the destruction of rainforests for animal agriculture.
The company has stakes in more than 20 startups, a few of which it hopes will achieve commercial success and generate significant gains for shareholders. As the share price tells us, this has not actually happened. At least not yet.
Earlier this month, Agronomics published its results for the six months ending December 31. The company made a net profit of £10 million during the period, reversing a loss of £6.5 million the previous year.
Net asset value (NAV) per share rose 11.7% to 13.78p, up from 12.34p in June 2025. The strong performance was driven by unrealized gains in key properties, including Liberation Bioindustries (£4.1m) and Blue Nalu (£4m), following successful funding rounds.
Collectibles
Blue Nalu is a farmed seafood company that makes products from fish cells. Its initial focus is bluefin tuna, which is one of the world’s most expensive and overfished seafood.
If tuna is approved, Blue Nalo says it will target “Sushi establishments and fine dining restaurants across the United States, working with chefs, distributors and strategic partners to provide a consistent, high-quality product available year-round.“.
With the global population expected to reach approximately 9.5 billion people by 2050, we cannot continue to overfish the oceans. This is clearly not sustainable.
In theory, this company has a very big business opportunity in the future. As such, it has a 12% weight in the portfolio, making it the second largest holding after Liberation Bioindustries.
Top 10 collectibles (on December 31, 2025)
| a company | to focus | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Liberalization of vital industries | Contract manufacturer for microbrewing | 25% |
| Blue Nalo | Cultivated bluefin tuna | 12% |
| Supermet | Farmed poultry | 11% |
| Onego Bio | Cultured egg proteins | 8% |
| Formo Bio | Cultured dairy proteins | 7% |
| All G Co Holding Companies | Cultured dairy proteins | 5% |
| Clean food group | Cultivated palm oil | 5% |
| Solar foods | Novel air protein | 5% |
| Every company | Cultured egg proteins | 4% |
| Meaty | Cultivated pet foods | 3% |
Deserves a penalty kick?
The biggest risk here, of course, is that none of these startups may ever achieve commercial success. A company called Meatable fell by the wayside last year, resulting in a £11.9m write-down for Agronomics. Others can follow.
Another thing worth mentioning here is that this penny stock is extremely volatile. It can go up and down by 50% in the blink of an eye, so it’s definitely not suitable for risk-averse people.
The shares are currently trading at a 50% discount to net asset value. So, in theory, there could be a trade here, assuming the portfolio progresses well and market sentiment improves for the agricultural economy. Obviously, downloading Melon is a good sign.
On the other hand, there is no guarantee that the discount will narrow. For me, agronomy is like rolling the dice. I see safer opportunities elsewhere for my ISA.
