Seaweed goes from strength to strength
Ilona Amos on two Scottish firms making the most of an indigenous ingredient to create innovative products, new jobs and greener output
Two pioneering Scottish businesses have teamed up in a bid to help revive a centuries-old traditional industry and benefit the planet at the same time. Scotland has a long history of harvesting seaweed, with multiple uses from burning it to create soda ash, extracting iodine from the plant, and producing alginates for use in medical products and foods such as ice cream.
Despite its role in helping sustain communities on the West Coast, in the Hebrides, and northern isles in times past, seaweed also provides food and shelter for marine life and absorbs climate-warming carbon dioxide.
The seaweed industry today is much smaller, with some handpicking and some dredging of wild varieties taking place.
Now Feragaia, maker of a boutique non-alcoholic gin, has joined forces with kelp farming firm Greensea Solutions in a bid to promote seaweed cultivation as a sustainable way to bring jobs to rural areas, create revolutionary products, and combat climate change all at the same time.
The partnership believes that the time is right to start growing seaweed as a crop, a practice which would remove the need for damaging dredging to gather wild kelp, and also increase the amount of plants sucking up CO2.
“We believe seaweed cultivation is the way forward,” says Amabel Hamilton, who established Greensea Solutions, which operates on the West Coast, with her husband, Douglas.
“With the growing use of seaweed in many new edible products coming onto the market, we want to assure our food systems are remaining sustainable for the future, for if not managed correctly wild harvesting methods such as dredging can be very damaging to seabed ecosystems.”
The new partnership sees boutique drinks brand Feragaia switch to sourcing the seaweed it uses as one of the botanicals in its alcohol-free spirit from Greensea Solutions. This is part of a wider plan to reduce the impact of the drink’s manufacturing process on the environment.
This collaboration will allow us to shift people’s perceptions of Scottish produce cultivated with the greatest respect for the natural resources Scotland has to offer
Jamie Wild, co-founder of Fife-based Feragaia, says: “Our partnership was founded on a shared purpose-driven vision for our small Scottish businesses.
“We look forward to accelerating our ambitions by teaming up to help shine a light on the potential seaweed has.”
Douglas Hamilton, adds: “Feragaia have made the forwardthinking choice to switch from using wild-harvested to linecultivated seaweed in their drinks.
“This collaboration will allow us to shift people’s perceptions of Scottish produce cultivated with the greatest respect for the natural resources Scotland has to offer.”
Seaweed farming involves seeding kelp on ropes in the sea, from where it can be harvested.
Feragaia is made from 14 land and sea botanicals, including seaweed. Bill Garnock, co-founder of the firm, says: “It brings a bit of weight to the liquid and also a really nice salty note.”
The distiller uses Scottish businesses, suppliers and growers to ensure that most of the ingredients used to make the nonalcoholic spirit are locally sourced.
Greensea Solutions has introduced a new line to grow the seaweed needed to produce the quantities of gin required.
Over the coming months, the two companies will be running a series of campaigns to promote the potential of cultivated seaweed – not only in Scotland but further afield – and highlight how small businesses can collaborate and contribute to achieve positive environmental change.
Garnock expands: “Just think, if we were to cover 9 per cent of the world’s oceans with seaweed farms we could produce enough biofuels to replace all of our current fossil fuel consumption and remove 53 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
“We could also grow enough protein to feed ten billion of us.”