Live from Seagriculture EU 2025

That's a wrap for the Seagriculture EU 2025 conference and WeAreAquaculture's liveblog for this year. Thanks to all who followed along, and see you next year!

The conference's second and final day closes with another pitching session featuring a mix of commercial ventures, research projects and other initiatives.

The first speaker is Aurora Tung Nilsen, Master of Science, SINTEF Ocean, Norway, outlining technology development for kelp nurseries through the Norwegian Seaweed Centre, is a national dedicated research infrastructure that promotes research and facilitates the development of new technologies for industrial cultivation and use of kelp. An automated nursery has been established as part of the research infrastructure, she explains.

Next Dr. Claudio Grunewald, Algae Program Director, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia speaks about what he describes as the "enormous potential" for seaweed production in the Red Sea, including both wild harvest and inland production.

Peter Green, Project Manager for Hatch Blue in Norway is up next, outlining Hatch Blue's Alaska Mariculture Insights Project, which focuses on promoting and growing Alaska's mariculture sector, particularly seaweed farming. Launched by the Alaska Mariculture Cluster (AMC) and funded through the Build Back Better Regional Challenge, the platform aims to offer crucial insights and data for industry stakeholders.

Our fourth speaker is Lizeth Botes, Project Manager for the Bivalve Shellfish Farmers’ Association of South Africa (BSASA), talking about The South African Kelp Farming Project (SA KFP). After a feasibility study on kelp farming in South Africa concluding this spring, they are now seeking funding to continue to a Phase 3 demonstration pilot project.

Isa Hiemstra, a PhD candidate in Bioprocess Engineering at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands presents next. She is focusing on the processing challenges and opportunties for creating value from seaweed biomass through a tuneable biorefinery, which she describes as "a flexible, adaptive approach to sequentially extract multiple products without compromising quality".

Teis Boderskov, Academic Employee, Aarhus University, Denmark talks about upscaling the cultivation of Saccharina latissima on net systems which are typically used in Danish mussel farming through the SMARTTANG project.

The session concludes with Manuel Lopez, Senior Technology Officer, EUSPA (EU Agency for the Space Programme), Czech Republic, on the Copernicus/EMODnet Demonstrator for Seaweed Farming. This enables seaweed farmers to access near real-time information on the marine environment and ocean conditions, including nitrate, temperature, chlorophyll and more. 

Now we hear more about seaweed's role in ecosystem services, from three experts on the subject:

• Jon Dickson, Marine Restoration, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research / Marine Trees, The Netherlands

• Mar Fernández Méndez, Research Scientist & CEO, AWI / MacroCarbon, Germany / Spain

• Oliver Hicks, CEO, Algapelago Marine Ltd, United Kingdom

Jon Dickson describes a 3 year experimental restoration project in the Dutch Wadden Sea, where wooden structures have been installed as artificial reefs. The results have seen a sixfold increase in fish populations, as well as a boost to biodiversity and lowering populations of pests such as crabs. He argues that this solution is both cost-effective and scalable.

Mar Fernández Méndez focuses on offshore cultivation of seaweed, with the aim of sequestering carbon. She describes two sites in Gran Canaria and St Vincent and the Grenadines which are planned to cultivate seaweed using floating barriers. She says that the modelling results show that the most feasible and effective way of storing the carbon taken up by the seaweed is to convert it into liquid hydrocarbons and biochar through thermochemcial processes.

Blue Forest initiative

Oliver Hicks is CEO of Algapelago, a regenerative mariculture developer and operator which is currently operating a 120ha pilot farm in north Devon, UK. He explains how the commercial focus of his company is on kelp for agriculture, shellfish production and natural capital development.

Hicks describes Algapelago's "Blue Forest Program", a 5 year research project exploring the potential of marine restoration alongside regenerative mariculture. He explains that this is a demonstrator intended to prove the concept.

“Our farm will provide the revenues to support and develop the seabed restoration, whilst over time we’re developing natural capital which then binds the whole scheme, and enables us to scale up."

He adds that the team are inspired by the work of Brian Tsuyoshi Takeda with Japan’s blue credits initiative, and hopes to get the UK and Europe to adopt the same approach.

Annette Bruhn, Senior Researcher, Aarhus University, Department of Ecoscience, Denmark, speaks on ecosystem services of seaweed cultivation - a crucial additional positive impact for this emerging sector.

Bruhn defines ecosystem services (ESS) as "the benefits people obtain from ecosystems".

She points out that seaweed's role in regulating biogeochemical flows - nitrogen, phosophorus and carbon - as well as regulating acidity and oxygen in seawater. Seaweed cultivation in the ocean can also provide habitats and sources of food for other marien organism, she says, and once harvested seaweed also providesbiomass for food, feed, materials, and nutraceuticals. It also provides "culture ESS", she argues, contributing to science, culture, and folklore.

However, she argues,when considering ESS, producers also need to be aware of "overselling" the positive stories - ecosystem services need to be quantified using standardised systems, she says. However, "many of these do not yet exist".

"It is imperative to adhere to existing defined standards, to develop reproducible methods and systems for yet non-existing standards and to optimize production management accordingly. This requires collaboration between science, industry and authorities," she argues.

This session aims to discuss the state of play of the global seaweed industry. What is the status today and where are we heading to?

Developing social license

Bailey Moritz, Lead Specialist on Seaweed Farming at World Wildlife Fund USA is focusing on public perception of seaweed farming - an issue she says has been raised repeatedly at this year's Seagriculture conference.

"At WWF, we see aquaculture as part of the food system, if we’re going to address the environmental challenges we have with climate change and also local economies," she says, noting that WWF USA has a particular focus on low-trophic aquaculture of seaweed and shellfish.

"We’re working to scale up seaweed farming to address these issues, and in order to do this, we have to address barriers,” she says, noting social license and public perception is “one of the trickiest but most essential problems”.

“This is one thing that can really limit our ability to scale as an industry I we have people who are contesting new farms and leases, especially in cold water farming regions where this is a new activity that’s going to influence our market demand and ability to meet that."

She says that education and training is crucial in influencing public perception, including in the school classroom, to communicate with school students and their parents. She says that WWF has been developing a curriculum on seaweed with partner in Maine.

She says inviting community members, regulators and policymaker to visit seaweed farms is another way of garnering acceptance.

How to measure shifts in public perception? WWF is using media coverage as a proxy to track this, and has developed an AI tool to retrieve content from local and global media sources and assess sentiment and perceptions, giving media articles a "score" based on perceived sentiment, positive or negative. She says she hopes the system can be scaled up and used by others in the sector, and invites collaborations and enquiries.

Need for conservation of wild stocks, and development of new cultivars

Juliet Brodie, a researcher in phycology at the UK's Natural History Museum highlights three key problems facing seaweeds worldwide in terms of pests and diseases: the limited number of cultivars, the movement of cultivars around the world, and the lack of adequate protection for wild seaweed species - something which the GlobalSeaweed-SUPERSTAR consortium of seaweed researchers called for recently at the UN Ocean Conference.

She points out that the seaweed industry is reliant on just a few clones of a limited number of cultivars that were originally developed from wild populations - and calls for international cooperation to develop cultivars, including seedbanks, nurseries, and development of strains which are resistant to pests and diseases.

She argues that the seaweed industry needs proper governance to prevent the movement of cultivars around the world to avoid the introduction of pests and diseases, which can also impact local wild seaweeds. She says non-native cultivars can also "escape" and risk changing the genetics of local species, or becoming invasive species.

And finally, she states that current protection for seaweed is inadequate - kelp forests are disappearing in many parts of the world.

"We've got to see these on a global agenda, on a global stage. We've absolutely got to have clear narratives. But to get a united front we've also got to reconcile the needs of the industry with the protection of wild stocks."

Now we move onto three presentations focusing on value-added products from seaweed.

Reducing methane emissions from livestock with seaweed feed additives

The first speaker, Maria Hayes, is Senior Scientific Researcher in Biotechnology and Natural Products Chemistry, Teagasc – The Irish Agricultural and Food Development Authority. She is presenting on the potential of seaweed proteins as high value, non-commodity products for enhanced health, nutrition and taste.

She describes trials with seaweed-derived additives carried out by Teagasc in both sheep and cattle, with the aim of reducing methane emissions. The seaweed additives were included in the animal diets at a proportion of 2% or 4% in diets, and trials resulted in a 10% reduction in methane emissions from sheep, and 9% reduction in cattle (beef bulls).

She says that this is a very promising solution, but will need to be combined with other methods of reducing methane such as genetic selection in cattle.

Opportunity for seaweed given consumer demand for minimally-processed foods

Our second speaker this session is Kate Sullivan, Founder of Uncracked, USA, focusing on seaweed for the “clean-label” market. She says the US food industry faces a series of challenges, including the prevalence of ultra-processed foods, lack of consumer trust, and pressure to reformulate products due to government regulation.

“Seaweed is uniquely positioned to tackle today’s biggest formulation challenges in the human nutrition industry,” she argues, with the most exciting growth opportunities in the “clean label” maket. She stresses that “clean label” is not a regulated term, but it indicates “minimally processed ingredients that are easy to understand, transparent with the consumer, and ideally provide some sort of health benefit”.

She explains that seaweed offers a sustainable alternative rich in functional polysaccharides like alginate and carrageenan, used for gelling, binding, and emulsifying.

“Ingredients like carrimen are increasingly associated with health concerns such as inflammation due to over-processing. Whether all these concerns are scientifically justified, they’re leading many consumers and brands to avoid these ingredients entirely, or rethink them.” She says there’s a growing interest in alternative processing methods which can maintain the natural structure and nutrition integrity of seaweed, while still “delivering the functionality”.

The final speaker in this session is Remko Hol, Co-owner & Founder, Olijck Foods, Meat you Halfway & Sea you Halfway, The Netherlands, talking about "The role of fusion (hybrid) food products in the protein shift". His company produces food products that combine traditional meat with plant-based ingredients, including seaweed, "to optimize both taste and environmental impact".

The final day of this year's Seagriculture EU gets started with the second conference keynote, featuring Dr. Stefan Kraan, Chief Scientific Officer of Oceana Organic Products Ltd, Ireland.

He says there are plenty of "reasons to be cheerful" about the opportunities for seaweed in the animal feed market. He says that, for example, stricter regulations on the use of antibiotics in farming, both within Europe and for animal products imported into Europe, offers an opportunity for seaweed-derived biostimulants.

He outlines how trials with seaweed ingredients improve gut health, leading to better nutrient uptake and lower feed conversion ratios across a wide range of species - including in salmon and shrimp aquaculture.

To round off this information-packed first day of the conference, we have a series of short pitches from a variety of seaweed entrepreneurs, researchers and projects.

First up is Christoffer Joys, Co-founder of Norway's Kelpinor, which develops and sells biostimulants from cultivated kelp. He explains that Kelpinor's proprietary production process allows the cultivated kelp to retain more of the bioactive compounds present in the kelp, which helps to make terrestrial crops more resilient to changing environmental conditions while increasing yield.

He is followed by Josefine Staats, Founder of the Algae AI Research Hub, speaking on how the initiative bridges innovation, collaboration, and sustainability.

The third speaker, Karla Dussan Rojas, comes from the research space, as a Scientist Specialist at Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research. She is giving an overview of process development and scale up for extraction of high-value polysaccharides from seaweed.

Now we hear about a Portugese project, from Rui Pereira, Director of A4F Centre for Innovation in Macroalgae, "Algae for Future" in Portugal.

Another Portuguese organisation is featured in the next pitch, by Helena Melo Amaro, R&D Manager for Ínclita Seaweed Solutions, Portugal. She is focusing on seaweed biorefinery, which she describes as "a key to unlock novel environmental and economic sustainable market opportunities".

The final speaker of this lightning-round of presentations is Brian Tsuyoshi Takeda, talking in his capacity as Secretary of International Affairs for the Japan Blue Economy Association. He describes how Japanese corporates are funding coastal restoration through J-Blue Credits (blue nature credits). (See WeAreAquaculture's recent interview with him)

Now we turn to a vitally important issue for all seaweed industry players: what investors are looking for, and what businesses need to keep in mind when approaching funders.

The session is moderated by Christelle Sapata, Senior Manager, PwC Luxembourg, Luxembourg.

Panelists:

• Richard Piechocki, Lead Financing the Bioeconomy, Rabobank, The Netherlands

• Morgan Ræ, Founder & Director, L’eautelier, Belgium/USA

• Tessa Charupatanapongse, Investment Lead, Potato Impact Partners, Singapore

• Rita Sousa, Partner, Faber, Portugal

Why are impact investors putting funds into seaweed? Tessa Charupatanapongse highlights three key areas: food security, climate action and coastal resilience.

She notes that global population is expected to double by 2050, but food production for both staple and non-staple crops is predicted to decrease by 35%. “We should be alarmed,” she says. “We need to close this gap and find a solution. With food systems changing, with climate and weather patterns becoming unpredictable, this is the driving factor behind this impact area, so we’re looking at seedling biostimulants to try to boost crop resilience, increase crop yields.”

“Agriculture accounts for 24% of greenhouse emissions, it’s only second behind the energy space, and energy is actually reducing because of all the renewables that are coming into play.” Seaweed is interesting for this in terms of methane reduction through feedstocks, she explains.

Also, regarding coastal community resilience, seaweed offers an opportunity to boost economic livelihoods in a regenerative and sustainable way, she explains.

Rita Sousa of Faber notes that her investment firm has a European mandate, adding they are “interested in developing the supply chain of the seaweed industry across Europe because that will also benefit the companies who are investigating and supporting them."

Asked to share drivers and challenges for seaweed investment, Morgan Ræ says "what we’re seeing right now as a channel for seaweed is as a luxury ingredient or for products in the luxury market." She says that there is increasing interest from the hospitality market, including airlines and hotels.

"In terms of investing trends, I think one thing is becoming clear: there is a push towards being impact driven. So if you’re a startup you can build those monitiorng systems for impact, and you can strengthen your business case.”

"Europe has a really bright ecosystem for grants and non-dilutive funding, so tapping into that can be very beneficial," she adds.

Richard Piechocki notes that seaweed businesses need to present their business case "based on very good market research - do you understand the market?"

The panellists note that last year saw a number of acquisitions of seaweed companies by corporations. This, they suggest, is mutually beneficial: the larger partner accesses expertise, while the new company accesses new financial and market opportunities, as well as helping achieve vertical integration of the different sectors.

Now we come to a session focusing on another key theme of this year's conference: the professionalization of the seaweed sector. This features talks from four "pioneers" sharing experiences on how they developed their businesses, how they learned from failures, and monetized opportunities:

• João Navalho, President of the Board, Necton, S.A., Portugal

• Haik van Exel, Managing Director, Hortimare, The Netherlands

• Kees Joziasse, PhD, VP Research, Development & Technology,

• Pierre Paslier, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Notpla, United Kingdom

The first speaker, João Navalho, is from Necton, the oldest microalgae production company in the EU, which was founded in 1997, initially developing microalgae products for aquaculture special feeds, but now producing for a variety of markets including food, nutraceuticals, feed and biostimulants.

Navalho describes how the company now owns 3 different production technological platforms, including more than 800 m3 of closed photobioreactors, and 8,000 m2 of greenhouse covered race-way ponds, and 10 m3 of fermenters.

Haik van Exel of seaweed seed specialist Hortimare (which hosted yesterday's site visit) explains that building the right team is key to success. "There's no other route," he says, "we have to have the right knowledge, experience and expertise in-house to be able to deliver a product that works".

The same idea of building teams also applies to the seaweed farming industry as a whole, he argues. “There is a future for cultivation, but it needs a different mindset, a different strategy. It needs collaboration. It’s actually very simple, if you’re not good enough, you have to find a partner… you have to build dream teams.”

He outlines the Seaweed Valley initiative, a non-profit foundation with the aim to build the value chain for different seaweed species through a cooperative approach. He says that seaweed producers with ambitions to scale need to become trusted suppliers.

Kees Joziasse now takes the stage to share his experiences working in the bioplastic (PLA) sector. "Focus on an application where you see a good fit, where the price levels are OK, where the properties of your material fit the requirements, and so on," he says. More broadly, he advises those developing new materials to "remain agile and be prepared to change course on strategy, market, product, business model, legal constructs, really any aspect of your business" depending on the circumstances.

Seaweed-based alternative to plastic packaging

The final speaker of this session is Pierre Paslier, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Notpla, which develops packaging materials from seaweed, and won the Earthshot Prize in 2022.

He describes the inspiration behind Notpla, experimenting with his co-founder, as "a little experiment that was not meant to be a startup. We thought, how cool would it be to create packaging that is a bit more like a fruit!" Unlike PLA, which Paslier says "needs man-made conditions" in order to be biodegradable, the seaweed-based material developed by Notpla can break down without human intervention.

Paslier explains that Notpla does not have its own factories, but uses external plastic manufacturing plants to produce its seaweed-based products. "We are going up in the value chain, we're starting to work with the big packaging players to work directly on their lines," he says. The company is also working on utilizing its cellulose by-products to make seaweed-based paper.

“It’s been a decade since we started this, but I think we’re seeing this acceleration point and hopefully packaging can be another additional market that will support the seaweed ecosystem," he says.

Notpla uses mostly brown and red seaweeds, sourced both from Europe and southeast Asia. “Now with some of our partners we’re starting to develop the first generation of packaging grade functional extracts that are the right price, the right level of extraction.”

“We want to strengthen the existing seaweed ecosystem. We think that Europe has a role to play, so it’s just about connecting dots.”

“We inherit an industry that was built for cosmetics, farmers, food, fertiliser... We have a different set of use cases, so we’re really interested in some of the brown species that are not very interesting for all of those applications, but have worked very well for packaging."

“Overall I think there’s a huge growth that needs to happen in Europe because we’re such a small player compared with what is in the world, and at the same time we have one of the most progressive markets for jumping on better packaging that is not plastic," he concludes.

Now we move onto a session extending this focus on collaboration raised by van den Burg in the previous talk.

The first speaker is Elin Njåstad, CEO of the Norwegian Seaweed Cluster, explaining the growth of networks of seaweed producers in Norway since 2010. In 2021, two regional networks of seaweed farmers merged into the Norwegian Seaweed Association, which launched the Cluster in 2022.

Why is cooperation critical? Njåstad says it reduces risk and uncertainty, enables pooling of resources, and accelerates innovation. "It also signals transparency and a shared sense of purpose," she argues.

"You need shared goals, vision and commitment," she says. The partners have to align on what they want to achieve, for example, new product development. It's also a long-term process.

She says the cluster keeps an overview of the partners' activities and needs, and can make connections with R&D, as well as acting as a bridge with public authorities and regulators. She says the group is also creating a more efficient value chain by enabling members to focus on their strengths rather than each company each trying to cover the entire value chain. The cluster also facilitates dialogue and netowrking, including focus groups, workshops, training and communication.

She says "collaboration is not just a support mechanism, it is the engine that enables a new industry to merge, grow and thrive."

Now we hear from Alexander Ebbing, CTO & Co-founder of kelp farming firm Ebbing Tides in the Netherlands, explaining why he believes “Collective Growth is the Future of Seaweed”.

He argues that the seaweed industry needs to adopt an “abundance mindset” instead of a “scarcity mindset”, and says it is being held back by short-term thinking, focused on competitors and next year’s revenues, as well as an “avoidance of failure”. He says that failure should be seen as the engine of innovation, and that long-term collaboration can lead to greater innovation and progress for the industry.

He adds that he sees “unlimited growth potential” for the seaweed sector, and that it is “the most renewable foodstock there is.”

Our final speaker this session is Frederick Bruce, Senior Project Manager, s.Pro – sustainable projects GmbH, Germany, speaking on collaboration as a strategy for regional resilience and global competitiveness.

He argues that the seaweed sector needs aggregation and coordination, with smallholder-based value chains being more efficient than very large-scale operations at redistributing value, creating jobs and ensuring a living wage for farmers. "It can address multiple power inequalities that we see in other companies. I don't think it's a conflict between regional resilience and global competitiveness, I think it's a combination of both - we can have both," he says.

"We have plenty of entrepreneurs, but we don't have this entrepreneurial team spirit where we're working together."

Now Dr Sander van den Burg comes onstage to present the Seagriculture EU 2025 keynote: Power, Codification, and Collaboration: A Governance Perspective on the European Seaweed Industry.

A Senior Researcher at Wageningen Social & Economic Research in The Netherlands, van den Burg has worked as project leader and program manager in marine research projects since 2011, specialising in sustainable development of seas and oceans.

Van den Burg is focusing on the issue of governance in the value chain, and aruges for the need for different seaweed actors to work together.

At the moment, the European seaweed trade is essentially a "buyer's market", van den Burg seems to suggest. Seaweed farmers, who are typically suppliers, "often hold limited influence in the value chain", he argues, remaining dependent on what buyers are prepared to pay. This means cooperation between seaweed producers is important, van den Burg argues.

"By working together through informal networks, joint projects, cooperatives, or formal sector organisations, farmers can strengthen their capacities, share knowledge, and collectively develop product standards," he argues. This helps to improve their situation, and makes producers more resilient and able to cope with problems such as lower harvests or other external factors, he says.

After some opening remarks welcoming everyone to the conference, we dive into the first session, focusing on the future of the seaweed industry in Europe.

The moderator for the session is Eef Brouwers, General Manager of North Sea Farmers in The Netherlands. He is joined by the following panellists:

• Meindert Stolk, Regional Minister, Regional Economy and Innovation, Environmental Quality and Enforcement, Culture and Heritage, Provincie Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands

• Maris Stulgis, Policy Officer Blue bioeconomy, Algae and Aquaculture, DG MARE, European Commission, Belgium

• Angela Schultz-Zehden, CEO, s.Pro sustainable projects GmbH & SUBMARINER Network for Blue Growth EEIG,Germany

• Joanne Gaffney, Aquaculture Technical Manager, Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), Ireland

• Fanny Faure-Fievet, Head of the Aquaculture Office, Directorate General for Maritime Affairs, Fisheries and Aquaculture – Ministry of Ecological Transition – French Government, France

The panellists speak about the potential of the seaweed sector to go beyond aquaculture and the blue economy, into other markets and industrial sectors - and with the need to raise awareness and knowledge of seaweed-based solutions and technologies within governments to ensure the continued growth and development of the industry.

Joanne Gaffney of BIM says that she would like to see other agencies and departments to get involved in developing markets and opportunities for the multitude of uses that seaweed can be applied for – not only food, but packaging, textiles and so on.

“Seaweed remains niche, and it’s hard to understand. It’s the job of BIM to promote that more, to network more with other agencies. Our bioeconomy colleagues and circular economy colleagues are asking more about seaweed. So it is building,” she says.

Synergies with agriculture

Angela Schultz-Zehden agrees, noting that on biostimulants, “we’re making the connection with agriculture, and how it can offer a sustainable solution. We have to show this when we are making roadmaps for governments – we have to convince the entire government, not just the sections dealing with aquaculture.”

“In terms of sustainability, we should be talking not only about the environmental aspect, but the social resilience of coastal areas. “I think when it comes to sustainability, we have to be very precise about how much seaweed can offer from various angles."

Seaweed can be a valuable source of biomass to feed a growing worldwide population, and also can replace terrestrial production of biomass in a way that has a very low environmental impact, she argues.

Space for cultivation

Securing space for large-scale seaweed cultivation needs to happen now, says Schultz-Zehden.

We have to lobby to get the space in the environment at sea, she argues, noting that the renewable energy sector is very strong. She emphasises the importance of the seaweed industry - not only researchers - to advocate for seaweed cultivation in marine spatial planning.

“If [government planners] don’t have a push from someone saying we need that space, it’s difficult to get it. In terms of roadmaps, the offshore windparks are not in the water yet, but the planning is done today. If we do not have the cultivation sites on the plans today, we will not get them in 2035 because all the regulations will be done. We have to push for it now,” Schultz-Zehden says.

Brouwers now asks the panellists for some final thoughts.

Define a small range of "unique selling points" and focus on those, argues Gaffney. "We have to pick a small range of topics to sell seaweed on, be it biostimulants, be it micronutrients, be it sustainable protein... there are so many good ideas, but to get traction, we're going to have to focus," she says.

Schultz-Zehden says in the EU, member states need to give structural support rather than one-off support for projects.

Stulgis notes that the EU's ambition is to be carbon-neutral by 2050, and says he hopes the seaweed sector can be part of this development.

Faure-Fievet says that in France, she sees the need to get all stakeholders on board in order to take concrete action on developing the future of the seaweed sector.

Good morning and welcome to WeAreAquaculture's liveblog coverage of Seagriculture, taking place in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, today and tomorrow (18-19 June 2025).

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 tours of Hortimare in Heerhugowaard to learn about breeding and farming operations, and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) in Yerseke, including a scientific meeting and a tour of the institute's seaweed research facilities.

With the overall theme of "Seaweed 2.0: Today’s Scaling for Tomorrow’s Needs," the conference, now in its 14th year, brings together a wide range of seaweed industry stakeholders, including seaweed farmers, processors, buyers, researchers, investors, policy makers, and equipment providers. Over 250 delegates from more than 30 countries are participating.

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