Transcending borders to unite with other seaweed enthusiasts

In June, IBioIC team members Annelie du Plessis, Neil Renault, and Albert Serrano Gomez travelled to the beautiful Faroe Isles to join SeAgriculture, the premier platform to foster collaboration, exchange knowledge, and inspire seaweed professionals.

After a warm welcome from hosts Ocean Rainforest, the conference kicked off with a tour of all three seaweed farming sites, and the team particularly enjoyed a boat trip for a closer look at innovative cultivation techniques while learning about the Faroese culture along the way and a visit to a processing facility where they saw fermentation being used to stabilise seaweed instead of relying exclusively on drying.

At the seaweed site

Coming into the processing facility

Inside the processing facility

Ocean Rainforest processing facility

 Amongst a truly international delegation, there was a strong presence from the Scottish seaweed industry and IBioIC shared a stand with SSIA which also represented a range of Scottish companies and organisations including HIE, Rubisco, SAMS, Atlantic Mariculture, and the Young Aquaculture Society.

Presentation topics were varied and included breeding and seeding, scaling up cultivation, innovative applications for seaweed, and a series of elevator pitches. One talk in particular that struck a chord with the team was from Charlie Bavington of Oceanium, who discussed the challenges of fucoidan business as a result of the inconsistent composition of seaweed, which makes forecasting complicated.

The team made lots of new connections, and found it particularly valuable to hear about success stories from further afield and discover new ways for the industry to support each other. We have welcomed new members as a result of attending, and we’re in discussions with another organisation about future scale up work at FlexBio.