Briana Warner @ Atlantic Sea Farms
Is Kelp The World's Most Regenerative Food?
Briana Warner is the CEO of Atlantic Sea Farms. Atlantic Sea Farms is supporting regenerative agriculture with its various regenerative kelp products grown using regenerative aquaculture practices.
The Brand
Atlantic Sea Farms created the first commercial seaweed farm in the U.S., providing a domestically grown, healthy, and nutrient-dense alternative to imported seaweed products. Their product line includes Sea-Veggie Burgers, regular and fruit Kelp Cubes, Sea-Chi (the first-of-its-kind kimchi made with kelp), a fermented seaweed salad, and fresh frozen kelp. Their products are sold in retail locations across the country, including Whole Foods, Sprouts, Wegmans, Fresh Market, and more.
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Real Food
U.S. consumers primarily eat seaweed three ways (dried seaweed snacks, nori wraps for sushi, and seaweed salad). For consumers that love seaweed salad, however, the news isn’t good: Most edible seaweed (98%) is grown in Asia in compromised water, often rehydrated and dyed with blue 5 and yellow, with added preservatives.
Contrast that to Atlantic Sea Farms, which grows kelp in regenerative seaweed aquaculture farms off the coast of Maine. They currently farm two species, skinny kelp (which is only found in Maine) and sugar kelp. In all, there are currently 195 macro algae species growing wild in the Gulf of Maine, and another 100 plus in Alaska. New Zealand has over 1,000 native species of macro, 400 of which don’t exist anywhere else – opening the door to endless opportunities.
“Our seaweed salad is fresh, from kelp that is harvested, blanched, shredded immediately, and barrel fermented with no accelerators. Because we blanch it, the kelp turns green – no dyes, no preservatives, just really good natural food.” – Briana
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Creating A Regional Economic Engine
Briana moved to Maine 10 years ago to serve as the economic development director for a local organization, charged with the preservation of island and coastal communities. It didn’t take long before she fell in love – with her husband and the state.
Core to Maine is its lobster industry, which has boomed in the last 20 years thanks largely to an investment in conservation ethics. But that success story has a potentially dire ending: the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 98% of the world’s oceans and the future survival rate of lobster larvae is projected to suffer as a result. This makes Maine's 4,000 local lobster fishermen and their contribution to the local economy vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
“We are trying to create a movement way beyond just a food product. If we do it right, we've proven something that others haven't. Kelp is part of the solution, but what we’re really trying to prove is that climate change adaptation and mitigation can come by relying on the people who are already working in these industries. Too often we focus on these big tech solutions that millionaires and billionaires throw money at to talk about how they are solving global climate change, yet so many of their ideas are unachievable. We’re looking to these moonshot solutions for answers to something that we actually have the answer to right in our backyard.” – Bri
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On top of a changing climate, Maine's current economy faces downward pressure from wealthy non-residents buying or building second homes in the state. There is a concern that permanent resident numbers will fall dramatically, and consistent year-round incomes are the best way to keep them in place. Intent on preserving these coastal communities, Bri worked with fishermen to brainstorm diversification strategies. Together they found that bi-valve, scallop, and seaweed aquaculture offered a unique opportunity to not just market nutrient-dense, regenerative foods that are good for the environment, but to give fishermen an amazing off-season source of income to complement lobster.
“We saw an opportunity to build off the skill sets of people in these heritage industries, allowing them to be who they are. You can’t take a fisherman and put them behind a hotel desk.” – Bri
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What’s So Special About Seaweed?
Turns out, seaweed is an ideal off-season “crop,” complementary to lobster because it uses the same equipment, staffing, and water territory. In 2018, there was also only 30,000 lbs of domestic seaweed production in the states; however, the market potential was huge as the U.S. was the third-largest importer of the crop.
After securing funding, Bri and the coastal organization she worked for founded Ocean Approved, the first commercial line-grown seaweed farm in the U.S. One year in, Bri was asked to take over as CEO and since 2019, they’ve grown to include 27 partner farmers, processing 1.3 million pounds of kelp (which is still only 0.001% of all line grown seaweed in the world).
Key to their operation is the in-house production of kelp seeds. As natural kelp starts producing, divers pick the largest seeds, mimicking the natural release of seed tissue. These seed spores are released into tanks of natural seawater where they attach to twine wrapped around PVC pipes. After 45 days in the nursery, partner farmers take the pipes, unravel the lines, and let them sit for 6 months in the open water – no irrigation, no inputs, no pesticides.
Symbiotic Benefits
For Bri, it’s seaweed’s regenerative impact that’s more important than its carbon sequestration potential. Seaweed removes carbon and nitrogen from the water, reducing its pH (turns out that when oceans absorb the excess carbon in the atmosphere, they become more acidic, making it harder for key phytoplankton to survive). When kelp is planted in the water, nearby mussels feed on kelp detritus within that “halo” – doubling in shell strength in just six months and adding significant muscle mass. Plus, there’s zero downside to this process.
“Combined, aquacultured bivalves and aquacultured seaweed are the best foods that you can eat for the planet. Kelp, mussels, and oysters are super nutrient-dense, and the more we eat, the more demand we create, and the better it is for the environment. Add to that the adaptive benefit of fishermen being able to diversify their income in the face of climate change, and you have a truly regenerative food.” – Bri
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Building a Brand
Kelp is not the first thing that comes to mind when the average American gets hungry. In the last 10 years, however, U.S. consumers have started to get on the “umami” train. As Bri explains, there are only three sources of umami: fish, mushrooms, and seaweed. But typical to Americans, we don’t just adopt the whole foods we import – we mesh, blend and reconfigure in the name of convenience. And that’s the opportunity for kelp – putting it in smoothie cubes, chocolate, crackers – wherever you want to add that umami.
The challenge, however, is getting consumers educated about kelp and what products they can find it in. Right now that is limited to only 1 of 15 aisles in the grocery store according to Bri. This low category penetration provides both the challenge and the opportunity, so Atlantic Sea Farms is betting on new product innovations designed to cater to the American palate.
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Our Path to 50% Market Share 4 Regen
Bri believes consumers need to feel and understand that they can make decisions at the grocery store that will help improve the planet. And that means being diligent about calling out “blue-washing” (ocean-oriented greenwashing). It's going to require regenerative brands to be honest about who they are and what they're doing and how they're doing it, and buyers to set goals on sourcing, not just carbon offsets.
Bri also believes we need to invest in businesses that can actually change the game rather than non-profits that simply run programming. On the for-profit side of things, investors need to think beyond growth at all costs – because expectations around how companies should grow is what got us into these problems in the first place.
“We’ve now raised $9 million and it’s all from people that truly stand behind what they're saying. Sadly those people are few and far between. But man, when you get the support that we have for our business from investors, it works. It's not that our shareholders aren’t high pressure – of course they are. They want us to beat our goals but also support the mission. I just wish there were a whole lot more like them.” – Bri
You can check out the full episode with Briana from Atlantic Sea Farms HERE.
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This ReGen Recap was produced with support from Kristina Tober