A consortium led by Ocean Rainforest comprising 25 international, cross-disciplinary partners has been awarded a prestigious €9 million Horizon Europe grant to upscale seaweed production and market applications across Europe.
The project aims to lay the foundations for an entirely new European maritime industry to meet growing demand for seaweed-based products and attract investment from multiple sectors.
For the first time, SeaMark (short for Seaweed-Based Market Applications) aims to exploit the full spectrum of products derived from seaweeds on an unprecedented scale – from medicine to cosmetics, human food and animal feed.
Seaweeds are among the fastest growing crops on the planet, requiring only sunlight, carbon dioxide and naturally occurring nutrients to grow. They are also rich in bioactive compounds with various medicinal, nutritional and biomechanical properties.
During the four-year project, SeaMark’s multi-disciplinary team will develop twelve innovative products with direct market applications, predominantly based on cultivated sugar kelp (S. latissima). These include a bio-packaging material, a meat replacer and feed supplements with pre- and probiotic functional ingredients to improve digestibility, conversion ratios and overall sustainability and productivity of conventional livestock feeds.
Alongside market applications, SeaMark will quantify ecosystem services provided by seaweed farms, contributing to a body of evidence justifying large-scale seaweed cultivation as a bioremediation tool and key element of a new circular bioeconomy.
Ocean Rainforest is a pioneering blue growth company located in the Faroe Islands and California, USA growing seaweed for feed, food and cosmetic producers, collaborating with a number of international partners. Their purpose is to improve people’s wellbeing and to leave a unique legacy to our blue planet. They do this by applying science, innovation and expertise to grow premium quality seaweed for sale and research.
