The Multi-Billion Market for European Seaweed

Welcome to a crash course on seaweed. We discuss everything you need to know about this sustainable, regenerative, versatile raw material.

Jon Funderud is the CEO of Seaweed Solutions. They started as one of the first seaweed farmers in Europe, pioneering and collaborating with partners along the value chain to build up this market. Based in Norway, they are one of the few companies in the Nordics able to provide startups and big food with seaweed as a raw material. In this episode, we explore why seaweed is projected to be a multi-billion dollar industry as well as what makes it such a sustainable and versatile raw material.

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Episode Transcript

Analisa Winther, Nordic FoodTech Podcast Host  2:27 

It's always a little bit fun to get started with the origin story of the company. So, how did Seaweed Solutions get started?

Jon Funderud, Seaweed Solutions  2:36 

Seaweed Solutions was founded in 2009 by a guy called Pål Bakken. He has a background from the seafood sector in Asia where he was selling the salmon to the Japanese market. And being in Asia, he also saw the widespread consumption of seaweed, which is something we don't really know much about in Europe. We don't eat seaweed, traditionally. But he saw that this was a major industry in Asia. And he thought, "Why has this not been done before in Europe?" and he wanted to bring seaweed farming to Norway and Europe.