Sector updates, field notes, and commentary from the seaweed sector. We publish regular updates on developments across BC, Canada, and the wider blue economy. If you are working on something worth sharing, we would like to hear from you.
A field observation, a market development or a lesson from the season. If it would be useful to others in the sector, we would like to publish it here, with its sources.
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· Sector Update · Canada
This week we looked at seaweed compounds in cancer research, laboratory work on norovirus binding, and gut barrier studies in mice. These are early and very different stages of research, not proven treatments. They do sh...
· Sector Update · Global
Seaweed commercialization rarely happens in one leap. It develops as promising ideas move through testing, production and market adoption. This week's Industry Pulse looks at that journey in British Columbia, and at what...
· Sector Update · BC
A product maker who wants to buy seaweed from British Columbia starts with a simple question: who can sell me kelp, in what form, and when? I looked for a published answer to that question this autumn. There is no single...
· Sector Update · Global
This week I have been asking how a seaweed industry gets built. Farms alone do not make one, and buyers alone do not either. An industry exists when growers and buyers can trade reliably, and that depends on the steps in...
· Sector Update · North America
Seaweed has been used on land farms for centuries, as feed and as fertiliser. Today it is one of the markets the kelp industry is counting on. GreenWave's 2026 report on the industry in the United States and Canada names...
· Sector Update · North America
This week I looked at one question from four sides: what a kelp farmer in North America is paid, and why that price stays low. Each day's post took one piece of it. This note brings the pieces together, adds what the lat...
· Sector Update · Global
Three announcements in the first week of October were each described as progress for seaweed. A farm in Alaska grew giant kelp. An Australian company signed a distribution agreement with a target of 480,000 cattle. A stu...
· Research Update · Global
Recovering several useful products from the same kelp feedstock is an appealing prospect for seaweed processors. A new study offers a processing insight worth following: a solvent system may help make compounds accessibl...
· Research Update · Global
Matt Shipman · NC State University
Researchers at NC State University have developed superadhesive meshes inspired by the way seaweed naturally tangles and traps debris in the ocean. The meshes capture microplastic particles across a wide size range, from...
· Sector Update · Global
Ocean Visions released its Seaweed-Based Products for Decarbonization roadmap in June 2026, a comprehensive technology and policy document covering biofuels, food products, critical minerals, agricultural uses, biomateri...
· Sector Update · North America
California Ocean Protection Council · State of California
California's draft action plan sets out a statewide framework for developing commercial marine aquaculture while protecting coastal ecosystems, public health, tribal cultural resources, and public access. It proposes clo...
· Sector Update · Global
Saudi Arabia is making a serious bet on seaweed. As part of Vision 2030, the Kingdom has committed over four billion dollars to aquaculture development, and commercial analysts project its fisheries infrastructure market...
· Research Update · Global
A January 2024 study from researchers at the University of Coimbra and University of Aveiro in Portugal traces, for the first time in a comprehensive and integrated way, the full development pipeline from seaweed extract...