"Seaweed is not a fish!"—one of Olavur Gregersen's key messages at the Arctic Algae Conference in #Reykjavik, #Iceland, on September 5th, 2024. With a metric ton of fish on your deck, the potential revenue is clear: it’s just a matter of time to market and price, with demand always present. But when you harvest a metric ton of seaweed, the challenge truly begins. Seaweed must be made storage-stable within 24 hours to avoid spoilage, and market demand varies significantly depending on species, processing methods, price, and bioactive compounds. Unlike fish, the #seaweed business is about blue #biotech, not just #biomass. Understanding the market and applying the right technology are crucial to converting raw seaweed into valuable products. In the Western world, we need to reduce the costs of cultivated seaweed and scale up production to make it a sustainable and reliable resource that can replace existing sources, improve food and feed health, and reduce carbon footprints across supply chains. This requires active participation from established food, feed, and commodity producers through long-term off-take agreements, committing to price points and product supplies. The conference featured many exciting presentations, including insights from Dorit Avni, coordinator of the #Horizon2020 Project Algae4IBD, on the impact of macro- and microalgae species on the microbiome, and Jorunn Skjermo (SINTEF Ocean), who shared results from some of the world’s most exposed seaweed cultivation sites and related modeling work. Paul Dobbins from WWF highlighted the positive environmental impact of seaweed cultivation, and it was also a pleasure to see the first results from the #CircleFeed project, funded by Nordic Innovation, presented by Johan Magnusson from Lava Seaweed, an Ocean Rainforest joint venture in Iceland. A big thank you to #Rækt, Inga Valgeirsdottir, and Siggi Petursson for organizing the event at the beautiful Arion banki Bank venue.
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