Live from Seagriculture EU 2026

Seagriculture EU 2026 has come to a close in Gothenburg, Sweden, after two days of discussions on how Europe’s seaweed sector can move from early promise toward survival, scale and real impact.

Throughout the conference, speakers returned to several recurring themes: the need for clearer regulation, stronger value chains, better financing, more reliable biomass supply, and closer collaboration between farmers, processors, researchers, investors, policy makers and end-users.

Day 1 focused on the foundations of a maturing industry, including seaweed regulation, food applications, selective breeding, biostimulants, biomaterials, finance and lessons from failure. Speakers also highlighted the need to professionalise the sector without losing sight of experimentation, realism and long-term ambition.

Day 2 looked more closely at industrialisation, project coordination and environmental value. Sessions explored how seaweed research can be translated into commercial products, how European and international projects can be better connected, and how seaweeds may contribute to carbon capture, biodiversity, ecosystem recovery and coastal resilience.

A clear message throughout the event was that seaweed cannot scale through individual companies or isolated projects alone. The sector will need coordinated value chains, credible data, market-ready products, enabling policy and customers willing to buy at scale.

The conference closed with a final round of Seaweed Elevator Pitches and remarks from Maris Stulgis, Policy Officer for Blue Bioeconomy, Algae and Aquaculture at the European Commission’s DG MARE.

WeAreAquaculture’s live coverage from Seagriculture EU 2026 ends here, but the liveblog entries will be updated with some further quotes and summaries. Thanks for following along!

This session now looks beyond biomass, focusing on the environmental and economic value seaweeds can provide through carbon capture, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity enhancement.

The speakers are Lorena Neira, Founder and CEO of Blusink; Caroline Haukeland, Project Developer at SeaForester; and Hayley Swanlund, PhD researcher at the Scottish Association for Marine Science.

Neira discusses how ocean alkalinity enhancement can be embedded into marine ecosystem restoration, turning carbon removal into a regenerative function of living marine habitats rather than an external intervention.

Haukeland presents SeaForester’s work on scaling kelp forest restoration, including efforts in Norway to restore sea urchin barrens through urchin removal and active outplanting.

Finally, Swanlund focuses on the evidence base for seaweed aquaculture’s wider ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration and biodiversity support, and the need for more standardised monitoring, reporting and verification methods.

The afternoon programme resumes with a keynote from Xu Ben Zhang, Managing Director of the Kelp Forest Foundation, on J-Blue Credits.

Her presentation focuses on case studies from what is described as the world’s first state-backed, stackable blue carbon credits for wild and farmed seaweeds.

Zhang works across science, policy and industry to turn kelp research into practical impact, including through kelp restoration projects, blue carbon credit methodologies, training programmes and partnerships with universities, NGOs and governments.

The Kelp Forest Foundation advances kelp research, restoration and education through science-based projects and partnerships, with a focus on monitoring protocols, local research capacity and evidence for kelp-related climate and biodiversity solutions.

Read more on J-Blue credits in WeAreAquaculture's interview with Brian Tsuyoshi Takeda, who was appointed JBE's Secretary of International Affairs last year:

Just before the conference breaks for lunch, the organisers have announced that next year Seagriculture EU will take place in Ostend on the Belgian coast, from 15-17 June 2026.

The next session offers an overview of seaweed projects advancing cultivation, processing, product development and collaboration in Europe and worldwide.

The session looks at how EU initiatives, research projects and international case studies are helping shape the next stage of the seaweed sector, from cultivation and biorefinery to multi-use offshore production and seaweed protein research.

Speakers:

• Angela Schultz-Zehden, Managing Director, s.Pro sustainable-projects / SUBMARINER Network, Germany: “Connecting the dots between and beyond individual seaweed projects: EU4Algae, the EU Mission Ocean and Waters, RootLinks and EITWater”

• Urd Grandorf Bak, Head of R&D Europe, Ocean Rainforest, Faroe Islands: “Advancing Europe’s Seaweed Sector: SeaMark Results and Pathways to Commercial Exploitation”

• Øivind Bergh, Principal Scientist and Coordinator of OLAMUR, Institute of Marine Research, Norway: “OLAMUR - large scale multi-use realisation of low trophic aquaculture together with offshore windfarms or fish farming”

• Ahmed Ali Al-Alawi, Associate Professor, Sultan Qaboos University, Sultanate of Oman: “Seaweed-Protein research in the Sultanate of Oman: Current research and future potential”

Connecting Europe’s seaweed initiatives

Angela Schultz-Zehden, Managing Director of s.Pro sustainable-projects and SUBMARINER Network, opens the session by looking at how European seaweed projects can be better connected to create lasting impact.

She says SUBMARINER Network has helped raise around €263 million through projects, but argues that the important question is not only how much funding has been secured, but what has been achieved with it.

“One single project will not make the change,” Schultz-Zehden says.

She highlights initiatives including EU4Algae, the EU Mission Ocean and Waters, EIT Water and RootLinks, saying these platforms can help connect people, results, policy discussions and future funding opportunities.

She also stresses the importance of member state support for the algae sector. “You have to raise your voice,” she says, urging industry stakeholders to engage with national ministries and decision makers.

SeaMark highlights progress - and remaining barriers

Urd Grandorf Bak, Head of R&D Europe at Ocean Rainforest, presents results from SeaMark, a Horizon Europe project involving 25 partners across the seaweed value chain.

Bak says SeaMark has helped advance cultivation, processing and product development, including automated seeding for offshore cultivation, selective breeding, biorefinery, fermentation and environmental assessment.

She notes that an automated seeding machine now enables two people to seed 10km of line, which she says represents an 80% cost reduction.

Bak says the project has also shown the importance of biostimulants as a potential scale-driving product, but adds that regulatory barriers remain a problem for sales in Europe.

“We do not see that the European seaweed industry has failed to scale, but that the system has not yet adapted,” she says.

She also stresses that cultivated seaweed, wild-harvested seaweed and microalgae should not see each other as competitors.

“We are not competing against each other. We are competing with all the other biomass resources that are out there,” Bak says.

OLAMUR explores multi-use aquaculture at sea

Øivind Bergh, Principal Scientist at Norway’s Institute of Marine Research and Coordinator of OLAMUR, presents the project’s work on large-scale multi-use of marine space.

OLAMUR is testing low-trophic aquaculture, including seaweed and mussel cultivation, alongside offshore wind farms and, in Estonia, with a rainbow trout farm.

Bergh says multi-use is attracting interest in Europe because ocean space is limited, while demand is increasing for renewable energy, seafood and sustainable marine production. “As you all know, they don’t make more space,” he says.

He argues that combining offshore wind with low-trophic aquaculture can increase spatial efficiency, share infrastructure and reduce conflict between sectors. However, he says there are still challenges to do with licensing, hydrodynamics, competing uses, nutrient conditions and marine spatial planning.

Bergh also notes that, in Norway, wild seaweed harvest is unlikely to increase and may need to be reduced for ecological reasons, strengthening the case for cultivation.

Oman seaweed research focuses on protein potential

Ahmed Ali Al-Alawi, Associate Professor at Sultan Qaboos University, closes the session with an overview of seaweed protein research in Oman.

He says Oman has significant seaweed diversity, and his team is studying seaweed proteins, hydrocolloids and bioactive compounds, including compounds linked to skin anti-ageing.

His presentation focuses on Hypnea bryoides, a red seaweed that contains both carrageenan and around 20% protein.

Al-Alawi says seaweed proteins should be assessed not only for nutrition, digestibility and amino acid profile, but also for their functional properties in food, such as water-holding, oil-holding, solubility, foaming and emulsification.

He says the protein extracted from Hypnea bryoides shows promising functional properties, including strong oil-holding capacity and a good level of essential amino acids. “Seaweeds are looked at as an alternative, sustainable source of proteins,” he says.

The first main session of Day 2 focuses on professionalisation -- a key issue for a seaweed sector seeking to move from early-stage experimentation to long-term commercial credibility.

The session brings together pioneers from the seaweed industry and other sectors to share experiences from building robust, scalable and credible enterprises.

Speakers:

• Franck Hennequart, Managing Director, ALGAIA, France: “One path among the numerous ways to valorize seaweeds”

• Anna-Kajsa Lidell, Board Member & Broker of Value Chain Collaborations & Systemic Investing, Sweden: “Positioning yourself to break new ground and grow what matters – Insights from a pioneering journey from startup to exit and beyond”

• Samantha Garwin, Director of Market Development, GreenWave, USA: “Building real things for real people: Setting anchors for a durable blue economy”

Execution is key to seaweed valorisation, says Franck Hennequart

Franck Hennequart, Managing Director of ALGAIA, opens the professionalisation session by reflecting on more than 20 years in seaweed research, product development and industrial processing.

Speaking remotely, Hennequart says companies need to be clear about their biomass, target markets, regulatory requirements, process position, skills and funding strategy before deciding how to valorise seaweed.

Drawing on ALGAIA’s development, he says the company has focused on a biorefinery approach, producing alginates while also working to valorise by-products into higher-value applications such as biostimulants, cosmetics and active compounds.

He says the company has faced strong price competition, particularly from China, making it necessary to invest in productivity, higher-value applications and better use of by-products.

Quoting Thomas Edison, Hennequart concludes: “Vision without execution is just hallucination.”

Anna-Kajsa Lidell: food innovation depends on trust

The session continues with a chat between moderator Ola Jönsson and Swedish entrepreneur Anna-Kajsa Lidell, who co-founded Food for Progress and helped build brands including Beat and Oumph!.

Lidell says one lesson from the plant-based sector is that consumer behaviour is difficult to change, and that poor-quality products can damage an entire category.

For seaweed, she suggests there may be more opportunity in using new ingredients to improve foods people already know, rather than expecting consumers to adopt unfamiliar ingredients in their home kitchens.

“I’ve lost hope in the fact that people should want to eat tech food,” she says.

Lidell also stresses the importance of values, trust and partnerships when building companies. She argues that failures are often caused by human issues rather than technical ones.

“Relational capital is what will make things happen,” she says.

GreenWave: relationships are infrastructure

Samantha Garwin, Director of Market Development at GreenWave, closes the session with a presentation on what it takes to build a durable blue economy in practice.

Garwin says the seaweed industry faces a systems problem, which cannot be solved by innovation or scale alone. “They can be solved by coordination,” she says.

She explains that GreenWave has shifted from supporting individual farmers to building regional capacity, strengthening full value chains, and establishing kelp as a problem-solving input for existing industries rather than simply a “hero” ingredient.

One example is GreenWave’s Kelp Innovation CoLab, which is working with beauty brands, MacroOceans and Unilever Foundry to support the development of consumer-facing products using kelp-based ingredients.

“Relationships are a form of infrastructure,” Garwin concludes. “Innovation alone is not going to build this industry.”

The second day of Seagriculture EU 2026 begins with a keynote from Pi Nyvall, Head of Scientific Affairs at Olmix, reflecting on 30 years of seaweed research across academia and industry. Founded in 1995, Olmix develops biosourced solutions for livestock and crop farming, with products used in more than 100 countries.

Nyval's research focuses on seaweed and algae in agriculture and biotechnology, specifically on valorisation, extraction and identification of active molecules. She has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers and has 8 patents. This morning's keynote looks at seaweed processing across the full value chain, from harvesting and factory operations to final applications in animal, plant and human uses.

Her presentation focuses on what is needed to make seaweed-based products industrially viable over the long term, and highlights the role of scientific collaboration in developing commercial solutions for agriculture and livestock.

"Can seaweed save the world? I think they can but not alone. They can be part of the solution, but not the only solution," she says.

Nyvall says seaweed-based applications need to be developed responsibly, supported by education, regulation and continued research.

She argues that seaweed needs to be brought closer to everyday life, while the sector also continues to characterise bioactive compounds and improve field performance so seaweed can become a trusted source of applications.

“This needs sustained investment and applied research,” she says, adding that applied research can also generate fundamental insights into how seaweed-based solutions work.

Nyvall says she would like to work more with cultivated seaweed because it offers better control, but notes that there is still a major gap in volume and price. For now, she says, wild harvest remains important because it enables companies such as Olmix to operate at scale.

She also stresses the need for the seaweed sector to work together. Seaweed solutions are still competing not so much with each other, she says, but with alternatives such as botanicals, yeast-based solutions and essential oils.

Strong seaweed products with clear evidence of efficacy can therefore benefit the whole sector, she argues, by making seaweed more trusted and reliable in the eyes of customers.

“We really need to work together on that part,” Nyvall says.

The first day of Seagriculture EU 2026 closes with a fast-paced round of Seaweed Elevator Pitches, giving presenters five minutes each to introduce projects, research and initiatives from across the seaweed sector.

The session features a broad mix of topics, including post-harvest stabilisation, food safety, macroalgae bioeconomy development, processing, certification and industry representation.

Presenters include Mar Vall-llosera Juanola of Chalmers University of Technology, Jennifer Perry of the University of Maine, Thiago Correa of UC Berkeley, Roy Henderson of Green Cell Technologies, Juhyun Andy Yi of ASC & MSC, and Jean-Paul Cadoret of EABA / ALGAMA.

This brings the first conference day to a close in Gothenburg, after discussions spanning regulation, seaweed-based food ingredients, selective breeding, biostimulants, biomaterials, financing, scaling challenges and lessons from failure.

WeAreAquaculture will continue live coverage tomorrow, as Seagriculture EU 2026 focuses on professionalisation, seaweed projects in Europe and beyond, blue carbon, biodiversity, ecosystem recovery and more.

The final main session of Day 1 takes a more candid look at the seaweed sector, focusing not on success stories, but on what can be learned when things go wrong.

The session brings together entrepreneurs and researchers to share lessons from mistakes, and to discuss how setbacks can lead to better science, stronger businesses and more resilient people.

Speakers:

• Jeff Hafting, Ph.D., Applied Phycologist and Consultant, Totally Seaweed Consulting, Canada - “Tales of epic fails. Lessons learned from 30+ years cultivating seaweeds on-land”

• Jessica Schiller, Team Lead / Senior Scientist, Hortimare, The Netherlands - “Cultivating Confidence: The role of research-backed scaling to supply high-quality seaweed starting material”

• David Mackie, Director, Marine Biopolymers Ltd, United Kingdom - “How to make a small fortune in seaweed”

The first speaker in the “Epic fails and honest tales” session is Jeff Hafting, Applied Phycologist and Consultant at Totally Seaweed Consulting, sharing lessons from more than 30 years of cultivating seaweeds on land.

Hafting is a specialist in land-based seaweed cultivation, with experience spanning seaweed biology, system design, cultivar domestication, R&D strategy, product development and commercial operations.

His presentation focuses on the role of failure in innovation, drawing on examples from his own career, including culture chambers boiling biomass, paddlewheel motors producing smoke, and earthquakes damaging tank walls.

Hafting’s experience ranges from thesis work on Pyropia, formerly Porphyra, to startup roles in Hawaii cultivating Gelidium and Devaleraea, also known as Palmaria, and later work on Chondrus and Palmaria cultivation in Nova Scotia.

He says his aim is to encourage others in the sector to keep going when setbacks make progress feel impossible. "Any sort of advancement requires failure," he says.

Research-backed scaling for seaweed starting material

Jessica Schiller, Team Lead and Senior Scientist at Hortimare, who leads the company's field trials team, now speaks on the role of research-backed scaling in supplying high-quality seaweed starting material.

Hortimare specialises in the early stages of the seaweed value chain, including starting material, production protocol development, breeding programmes, system design and optimisation. The company also maintains Europe’s largest and most diverse kelp gene bank.

Schiller’s presentation focuses on the challenges that arise when seaweed propagation moves from research to production scale, particularly when rapid scaling conflicts with the need for consistent performance in nurseries and farms.

She argues that failures can become opportunities for learning and improvement, and says Hortimare has focused on professionalisation, internal quality controls and strengthening the foundational building blocks needed to supply high-quality starting material to Europe’s seaweed farming sector.

"How to make a small fortune in seaweed"

The final speaker in the “Epic fails and honest tales” session is David Mackie, Director of Marine Biopolymers Ltd, a Scottish SME specialising in seaweed biorefining, particularly using brown seaweed species native to the northeast Atlantic.

His reference to the "small fortune" in the title of his talk is tongue-in-cheek, as he instead gives what he describes a realist’s perspective on the European seaweed industry.

The company was founded in 2010 with the aim of bringing alginate manufacturing back to Scotland, but has since evolved toward a wider seaweed biorefinery approach.

"Seaweed isn't magical. People talk about a tonne of seaweed as if it's really a tonne, but it's not, it's 80kg you can actually work with," he says, arguing that having realistic expectations - and ensuring due diligence in the sector are key.

"Just focus on the economics. If you don't see a true pathway to profitability, it's very hard going," he advises.

The next session turns from financing tools to the wider investment landscape for Europe’s maturing seaweed sector.

Moderated by Ola Jönsson, Co-founder of Nordic investment firm Partners in Quest, the panel explores how financing models need to evolve as seaweed companies move from pilot projects toward scale.

The discussion focuses on today’s investment landscape, the role of emerging offtake platforms, and how collaboration across the value chain can help unlock sustainable growth.

Panellists include:

• Alex Shapiro, Aquaculture Impact Investing Specialist, World Wildlife Fund, USA

• Michael White, Partner, Planet Ocean Capital, Luxembourg. White is also Chairman of SeaForester Group, which was formed earlier this year through the merger of SeaForester and Seaweed Solutions, as previously reported by WeAreAquaculture.

• Marie Sandin, Managing Director, Tetra Pak, Sweden

• Adam Kybird, Fund Manager, Triodos / Pymwymic Healthy Food Systems Growth Fund, The Netherlands

Asked what investors are looking for, Shapiro says WWF looks at the team, impact potential, reputation risk and due diligence when assessing companies.

Kybird says Pymwymic invests at a later stage, with tickets of €2–3 million at the absolute minimum, once a company has proven its concept and has a clear path to scale.

“The point of our money is once the concept is proven, once you have some traction, we can help to scale it significantly,” he says.

White argues that the European seaweed sector needs more joint backing, global mapping, partnerships and value-chain coordination if it is to reach the scale needed to attract large buyers such as IKEA and Tetra Pak. “Value chains are not going to happen by mistake,” he says.

He adds that such large buyers need to state their demand more clearly, giving the example of a company specifying a need for a particular volume and type of seaweed-based product.

Sandin says Tetra Pak’s experience in dairy, beverages and plant-based foods shows that new sectors are not built on single breakthroughs, but on ecosystems connecting processing, agriculture, packaging, distribution and end-products. “Consumers are not buying seaweed, they are buying appealing, affordable, safe products with a high quality,” she says.

She says Tetra Pak supports smaller producers through its product development innovation centres, including its main centre in Lund, Sweden, where companies can access infrastructure, food specialists, technical capabilities and co-creation support.

"We should not only be stuck in the old ways of doing things, we need to think about what new technologies and new innovations are available, and apply those," she adds.

The afternoon programme begins with a keynote from Adrien Vincent, President of Albatros Advisory, on financing for European seaweed companies.

Vincent is the founder of Albatros Advisory, an advisory boutique specialising in ocean sustainability. He previously founded and managed the Seaweed for Europe coalition, and now works with the European Commission’s EU4Algae platform and advises the Global Seaweed Coalition.

His keynote focuses on how European seaweed companies can access funding to develop faster and more sustainably.

Vincent says there is no single answer to this question. Instead, the relevant funding route depends on the profile and maturity of each project, with different options ranging from public funding to equity, debt and blended finance.

Debt financing remains challenging for aquaculture because of perceived risk, he says, noting that only 8% of deals in the aquaculture space involve debt, while the rest are equity-based.

He says Albatros Advisory is involved in developing a debt financing initiative for the sector.

He also highlights the potential of blended finance, asking how different instruments can be combined more effectively rather than treating grants, equity and debt as separate silos.

His conclusion is that founders should think carefully about the right fit before approaching investors. For investors and policymakers, he says, debt deserves more attention.

The next session focuses on two of the most talked-about commercial opportunities for seaweed: biostimulants and biomaterials.

As seaweed-based products gain attention as potential green solutions for agriculture, construction and industry, the sector is also facing important questions about evidence, scalability and market readiness. Can seaweed-based biostimulants consistently support plant and soil health? Can biomaterials move beyond promising prototypes into commercially viable products? And how much of the current interest is backed by science rather than hype?

Peter Green, Regenerative Projects Adviser and Manager at Hatch Blue, will speak on seaweed biostimulants for plant and soil health. Christoffer Joys Røang, Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Kelpinor AS, will present on Alaria. Daniel Jaramillo is due to speak in place of Kinge Gardien on seaweed in the construction industry, while Dr. Mark Dorris, CEO of Mercel Ltd, will focus on seaweed nanomaterials.

Unlocking the potential of seaweed biostimulants

First up is Peter Green, Regenerative Projects Adviser and Manager at Hatch Blue, speaking on seaweed biostimulants for plant and soil health.

Green works in Hatch Blue’s consulting, investment and accelerator activities, with a focus on seaweed startups, markets, transactions and sector development. Hatch Blue is a global venture and innovation company supporting sustainable aquaculture and ocean regeneration.

His presentation draws on a white paper prepared following an October 2025 roundtable in Washington, DC, organised by The Nature Conservancy, the World Bank and Hatch Blue.

The paper examines the potential benefits of seaweed biostimulants for agriculture, plant health, soil resilience and regional economic development, while also setting out a roadmap for integrating them into more sustainable agricultural systems.

“We’re seeing a lot of traction around the world,” Green says. “We really believe in this circular solution of farming seaweed in the sea, bringing it onto land... We’ll keep working in this space to move the needle.”

Kelpinor makes the case for cultivated seaweed biostimulants

The next speaker is Christoffer Joys Røang, Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Kelpinor AS, speaking on the company’s work with cultivated seaweed biostimulants.

Kelpinor develops and sells plant biostimulants made from Norwegian cultivated kelp, with products already sold in several European markets. Røang says their proprietary production process helps retain bioactive compounds that can support plants facing abiotic stresses such as temperature, flooding, drought, light and mechanical stress.

Røang’s presentation focuses on Alaria, and how Kelpinor aims to convince an agricultural sector used to wild-harvested Ascophyllum to adopt a cultivated seaweed species instead.

The central question is whether cultivated seaweed biostimulants can offer agriculture improved yield, better crop quality and reduced losses from abiotic stress, while also helping build a new large-scale ocean-based industry in Norway.

Røang says that modern biostimulants are legally and scientifically defined, and regulated based on plant physiological action, and backed by peer-reviewed studies. "We focus on proving effects with measurable outcomes," he says.

Seaweed in the construction industry

Next up is Daniel Jaramillo, speaking about Manatee Biomaterials’ work to bring seaweed-based materials into the construction industry.

Manatee Biomaterials makes ocean biomaterials for product manufacturing and packaging, using stabilised seaweed from harvest side streams sourced from Nordic waters. The presentation focuses on a practical case study: the design of seaweed-based ceiling panels, developed with value chain partners including Snøhetta, Arkio and AxFoundation.

Jaramillo says seaweed-based materials should not be viewed simply as a plastic replacement. “Just thinking about it like that undersells what it can do,” he says.

The project explores how seaweed-derived materials could be used in everyday applications, including in the built environment, a sector facing pressure to reduce emissions and move towards more "circular" materials.

He also touches on other applications, such as textiles and coatings, where he says seaweed-derived products can match the performance of existing plastic materials.

Seaweed nanomaterials: the high-value approach

The final speaker in this session is Dr. Mark Dorris, CEO and co-founder of Mercel Ltd, speaking on seaweed-derived nanomaterials.

Mercel is a green chemistry and materials science company spun out from Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. The company is commercialising technology based on seaweed cellulose, typically using waste or low-value co-products from seaweed biorefining.

Dorris says Mercel’s commercial strategy focuses on low-volume, high-value ingredients rather than low-value single-use packaging.

The company uses patented processes to turn seaweed cellulose into high aspect ratio nanofibrils, which can replace synthetic microplastics and other unsustainable or poorly performing natural ingredients.

Mercel is targeting applications in cosmetics, personal care and medicines, with functions including thickening, emulsifying, binding, water-barrier coatings and high-strength flexible materials.

After the opening keynote, the first session of Seagriculture EU 2026 turns to the central theme of this year’s conference: how Europe’s seaweed sector can move "from promise to practice".

This opening session looks at what it will take for the industry not only to survive, but to scale sustainably and deliver measurable impact.

Speakers include Maya Miltell, Senior Project Manager at SUBMARINER Network for Blue Growth, on whether seaweed legislation is a friend or foe; Ingrid Undeland, Professor at Chalmers University of Technology, on seaweed’s role in future food systems; and Gary Molano, CEO of MacroBreed LLC, on modernising kelp aquaculture through selective breeding.

Seaweed regulation: a friend or foe?

The first speaker in the opening session is Maya Miltell, Senior Project Manager at SUBMARINER Network for Blue Growth, focusing on regulation.

Miltell says licensing remains a major challenge for European seaweed cultivation, but cites Denmark’s simplified “hobby licence” system, used by Havhøst, as one example of regulatory innovation, with a one-page application and a four- to six-week turnaround for applications.

However, she argues that commercial producers still face lengthy establishment processes and complex product market-entry rules, particularly compared with markets such as the United States.

Europe’s strict regulatory framework can increase costs, she says, but it can also become a strength in terms of ensuring safety, traceability and quality.

“We need our own people to compete on the same terms as the biomass we import,” Miltell says.

She also highlights the biostimulants sector, with Ocean Rainforest as an example of a company navigating complicated EU fertiliser and chemical requirements - an issue previously raised by the company's CEO Olavur Gregersen, in an in-depth interview with WeAreAquaculture.

Miltell argues that regulations have not kept pace with developments in seaweed research and industry, and says the sector needs to identify which rules should change, which policies can be innovated, and which enabling regulations should be preserved.

Seaweed as an alternative protein source

Next up is Ingrid Undeland, Professor at Chalmers University of Technology, speaking on seaweed’s potential role in future food systems.

Undeland specialises in marine food science and blue biotechnology, with a focus on developing next-generation blue foods from sustainable raw materials such as seaweed, microalgae and fisheries side streams.

Her presentation focuses on seaweed’s value as a food source, including its potential as an alternative protein, as well as a source of micronutrients, pigments and flavours. She also examines how seaweed could help make use of nutrients from currently wasted seafood and food side streams.

Undeland says red and green seaweeds are generally more protein-rich than brown seaweeds. When compared on a dry matter basis with fish and chicken, some seaweeds are in the same range as soybeans and pulses, she explains.

“Our journey in this seaweed protein has been to work on raising the protein content of the biomass and to seek a new type of protein ingredient,” Undeland says.

One promising line of research, she says, is the use of side streams from seafood processing as a nutrient-rich fertiliser for seaweed cultivation. This approach has helped boost both nutrient content and growth, supporting a possible circular model linking seafood processing with future seaweed-based food ingredients.

However, extracting usable proteins from seaweed remains challenging. Undeland explains that the proteins are "interlinked in complex cellular structures", and many are located in cell membranes, making them harder to extract than proteins from crops such as soybeans.

Undeland says the aim is to make sustainable use of the whole biomass, including through biorefinery techniques that can extract proteins, micronutrients, pigments and polysaccharides for applications including biomaterials and health supplements.

Modernizing kelp aquaculture through selective breeding

The next speaker is Gary Molano, CEO of Maine, US-based MacroBreed LLC, speaking on how selective breeding could help modernise kelp aquaculture.

“One of the biggest levers to bring down the cost of production is to increase the yield and the value of the kelp we are producing,” Molano says.

MacroBreed is using genomic prediction and AI to improve farmed seaweed traits such as yield, stress tolerance and value. The company’s work includes reference genomes for giant kelp and sugar kelp, seed banks, high-yield cultivars, and clonal propagation of selected gametophytes to produce more uniform crops.

Molano says the company uses markers and sequencing to identify individual gametophytes with high breeding scores, which can then be propagated to produce targeted genotypes.

“We aim to increase consistency, which allows us to predict yield and performance, decreases uncertainty for the supply chain,” he says.

He adds that MacroBreed has also developed non-reproductive kelp technology, using genetics-guided methods to produce kelp strains that do not produce spores. The aim is to allow cultivation of improved kelp while reducing the risk of farmed strains spreading into wild ecosystems.

“We are also aware the ocean is a shared space and a shared resource,” Molano says, and says he sees cultivated kelp as the future for the seaweed industry, arguing that wild harvest of seaweed "is not sustainable or regenerative."

Molano says MacroBreed, which began as an academic collaboration, has spent years developing its seed technology, including an automated kelp farm seeder, and is aiming to launch a commercial pilot in autumn 2026.

The first keynote of Seagriculture EU 2026 turns to one of the most visible potential end-markets for seaweed: consumer products and materials.

Robert Carleke, Innovation Ventures Manager at Inter IKEA Group, is presenting on “From ocean to home: How IKEA explores seaweed-based materials”.

The presentation covers why IKEA is interested in seaweed, why the company engages with start-ups, and what it believes will be needed to scale the seaweed industry.

Carleke explains IKEA’s wider approach to innovation through the example of flatpack furniture, which helped the company reduce the cost of furniture by rethinking design, transport and assembly.

Rather than designing a product and only then determining the price, he says IKEA often begins with the target price and designs around it to make that price possible.

“The real innovation was the idea that cost is not the result of innovation, it is the driver of innovation,” Carleke says.

He points to the Billy bookcase as an example of how a product can be continuously redesigned to use less material and become more affordable to pack and transport, including through material substitutions and reduced plastic use.

Carleke also compares seaweed’s current position with hemp 10 to 15 years ago: once niche, underdeveloped and expensive, but now used in textiles, packaging, food and other applications.

Seagriculture EU 2026 is now officially underway in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The conference opens with welcome remarks from Prof. Katharina Riehn, Vice President of DLG; Margareta Broang, Deputy Lord Mayor of the City of Gothenburg; and Renée Bengtsson, President of Region Västra Götaland.

The opening session also features Christer Olausson, CEO of Nordic SeaFarm, speaking under the title “Together we can cultivate the future” - take a look at WeAreAquaculture's recent interview with him here:

Olausson says Europe’s seaweed industry has a major opportunity ahead of it, but stresses that turning that opportunity into a functioning industry will not be easy.

“Execution is hard,” he says. “For those of you who work daily with this, we struggled a lot, we made a lot of mistakes, but we also made a lot of learnings. We remain even more convinced that this will work.”

Olausson says the sector is developing at a time when marine ecosystems are under pressure and need to recover. At the same time, he argues, demand and opportunity already exist -- but Europe currently represents less than 1% of global seaweed production.

He says this leaves a significant opportunity to build a European seaweed industry, but argues that no single company will be able to do this alone.

“The question is not if, but who. That’s what brings us to this room. There’s no who, there’s us,” he says. “There is no single company that will be able to scale the seaweed industry in Europe. We need to work together -- everyone from farmers to processors, investors and customers.”

Olausson adds that collaboration should not only mean supporting one another, but also challenging each other to move the sector forward.

“We’re cultivating seaweed, but we are also cultivating an industry,” he concludes. “Let’s build it together.”

Good morning and welcome to WeAreAquaculture's liveblog coverage of Seagriculture, taking place in Gothenburg, Sweden, today and tomorrow (17-18 June 2026).

WeAreAquaculture is one of the media partners at the event, and we'll be keeping you updated throughout the next two days on the main issues and insights discussed.

Yesterday, Seagriculture participants began the event with exclusive site visit hosted by Nordic SeaFarm.

With the overall theme of “The European seaweed industry in transition: survival, scale and real impact,” the conference brings together a wide range of seaweed industry stakeholders, including seaweed farmers, processors, buyers, researchers, investors, policy makers, and equipment providers. Over 200 delegates from more than 30 countries are participating.

Follow along with our liveblog to stay updated on all the conference highlights!