Lean and green, whats not to love about seaweed? (Part 1)

Network of Maine growers building a robust market for ‘the new kale’

A new industry – seaweed farming – has been established in Maine. According to one estimate, 38 of 54 U.S. commercial seaweed farms are in the state, with increasing interest among new participants. Photo courtesy of Ocean Approved.

One Tuesday morning in late June, the outgoing CEO and incoming CEO of the first U.S. commercial seaweed farm traveled to business appointments on the Maine coast. During a quick stop for coffee, yet another fisherman approached them to say he was getting into seaweed farming.

Every day there is buzz around the growth of seaweed farming along the Maine coast, said Paul Dobbins, the outgoing CEO of Ocean Approved.

Briana Warner, who took the helm of the company last week, plans to draw on her experience as a food entrepreneur and champion of community economic development to bring Ocean Approved’s seaweed products to retail and make the American diet a little bit greener.

For the past decade, Ocean Approved has simultaneously built its seaweed production operation and pioneered a welcome new industry on the lobster-reliant Maine coast by creating infrastructure like nurseries to grow seaweed starts, promoting the industry as one that’s good for the economy and the environment and promoting the product as tasty and nutritious.

It has shown the ropes of seaweed farming to anyone who is interested – like fishermen looking to diversify their operations as the lobster fishery faces an uncertain future.

“We’re primarily a food company,” said Dobbins. “The supply chain is the sustainable aquaculture of which we’re facilitating the growth of on the coast of Maine.”

Atmospheric carbon dioxide, nutrient runoff and more acidic fresh water all raise acidity in coastal waters, which is damaging to shellfish. Seaweed absorbs CO2, lowering acidity levels and creating a theoretical “halo” of improved water quality. Scientists at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences are studying the size, effectiveness and variability of the halo. Image courtesy of Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and the Island Institute.

Bountiful harvest

All of that legwork and foundation-building appears to have come to fruition and established a new industry in Maine. By Dobbins’ last count, as of a few months ago, 38 of the 54 U.S. commercial seaweed farms are in Maine. He also met with shellfish farmers in Alaska several years ago, who have since started farming kelp. Some farms are small, with about 1,600 feet of rope in the water to support the large fronds of seaweed and others have 30,000 feet – more than five miles – of line.

While the Gulf of Maine waters over the last decade warmed faster than nearly any other body of water on the planet, Maine’s coastal waters are also becoming more acidic. More intense and frequent rainfalls wash excess nutrients, freshwater and pollutants off the land into the sea, raising the acidity in coastal waters.

Fast-growing seaweed sucks nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the water. Growing seaweed can apparently make the farm’s surrounding waters less acidic – a theory known as the “halo effect,” the research focus of Dr. Nichole Price, senior research scientist and director of the Center for Venture Research on Seafood Solutions at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

“My research really focuses on that localized solution that remediates water quality in a really small area, and an area where [growers] might be cultivating and harvesting shellfish that are really sensitive to changes in ocean acidity,” said Price.

Her research indicates the potential for calcification of farmed shellfish may be as great as 25 percent higher inside a seaweed farm compared to the outlook for producing shells outside the farm. So researchers and farmers are working on fine-tuning seaweed cultivation in conjunction with mussels, scallops or oysters to mitigate ocean acidification, add income from the seaweed crop and improve overall quality of the surrounding water.

As a rule of thumb, one foot of line can bring $1.60 to $4 at a low sugar kelp harvest, or $4 to $10 at a harvest of 10 pounds per foot. (Based on a low-biomass usable yield of four pounds per foot and high biomass yield of 10 pounds, wet weight, per foot, at a price of 40 cents to $1 per pound.)

Price’s research findings show real-time heat maps of carbon dioxide in the water around seaweed farms show an amoeba-shaped, cloud of lower-CO2 extending beyond the farm that shifts with factors like tides and wind. Sometimes that halo is tight around the farm and sometimes as much as 20 to 30 meters out from it, said Price, noting these are rough estimates from preliminary results.

“Seaweeds are generally happy if there’s more carbon dioxide around,” said Price. “They’re going to be one of those winners in a world in which we continue to emit carbon dioxide.”

Ocean Approved’s three frozen seaweed products – kelp slaw, kelp salad and kelp cubes that can be added to smoothies for a nutritional boost – are doing well in foodservice, which makes up 99.5 percent of its sales. Photos courtesy of Ocean Approved.

Nascent U.S. industry

First things first: This is not the dried, smelly and crusty stuff swarming with flies that washes up on the beach and is left behind at low tide. In Maine, that stuff is rotting rockweed (Ascophyllum nodosum).

Freshly harvested wild rockweed is mineral-rich, used as packing material for lobsters, and in other food, agriculture and supplements applications. It’s been commercially harvested and processed in Maine since the 1970s and makes up 95 percent of seaweed landings.

Edible seaweed – also known as sea vegetables, macroalgae or kelp – has been wild-harvested and dried for specialty, health-food markets over the last several years. It has also been farmed extensively in Asia. China and Indonesia are the world’s largest producers.

The global seaweed aquaculture industry was worth $6.4 billion in 2014, according to the United Nations and reported in an Island Institute study “In Pursuit of Sea Vegetable Market Expansion: Consumer Preferences and Product Innovation.”

Thirteen percent of the global seaweed harvest in 2014 was used to produce hydrocolloids — to form gels in a variety of products — 12 percent was used in agriculture and 75 percent was for human consumption, mostly in Asia, according to the Island Institute report.

What’s new and noteworthy is the nascent U.S. aquaculture industry supplying farm fresh seaweed to chefs, home cooks and inspiring new fresh and frozen food products.

About Author: Lisa Duchene has reported on the marine environment for two decades. She is a business-environment writer and communications consultant in central Pennsylvania