A new collaborative project between Cefas and the University of East Anglia, led by Hethel Innovation, has been launched this month. The Seaweed in East Anglia (SEA) project aims to identify the steps needed to develop a successful seaweed industry in East Anglia, with a particular focus on Norfolk.
With increasing demand for more sustainable resources, interest in the potential opportunities from seaweed production to deliver economic, climate and food security benefits, has grown. Seaweeds could be an important future feedstock for the UK and Norfolk, with wider applications in food, fertilizers, animal feed, biofuels, and bioplastics.
Seaweed farming also has the potential to support local businesses and generate employment, whilst also helping to achieve net zero targets and providing ecosystem services. Since 2016, seaweed related businesses in the UK have more than doubled, with a variety of products now available on the market.
However, several knowledge gaps and challenges need to be resolved for the industry to grow and realize this vision.
In the East of England, an understanding of the potential of current supply chains and the steps needed to develop a local seaweed industry, are lacking. The SEA project, funded by the Norfolk County Council through the Norfolk Investment Fund, will help address some of these knowledge gaps and provide the evidence base to encourage investment into local seaweed production supporting the growth potential of the industry.
Rikke Nagell-Kleven, SEA Project Manager, explains: “As we are looking for solutions to meet our Net Zero target, I believe that seaweed can be a part of the solution. Seaweed offers carbon sequestration opportunities, the ability to replace high carbon products such as chemicals in plastics and fertilizers, reducing methane production in cattle and providing food alternatives such as plant-based protein for our growing population. Through the SEA project, we will identify the opportunity Norfolk has to build a seaweed economy, focusing on Norfolk’s unique location and capabilities and examining the opportunities for co-location with other aquaculture and within windfarms.”
Over the next 10 months, the project team will scope farming methods, species, and locations for seaweed aquaculture; understand Norfolk’s production capability of seaweed-based products and develop a roadmap for the industry.
Dr. Elisa Capuzzo, Cefas’ Principal Investigator of the SEA project, said: “The seaweed industry in the UK has increased rapidly in the last few years, but there is still a lot of untapped potential. Building on our experience in developing feasibility studies for aquaculture, we will help identify seaweed species and farming practices that are appropriate to the Norfolk region and help identify suitable locations for aquaculture, while also contributing to the development of the roadmap for driving a seaweed economy in East Anglia.”
Dr. Tomás Harrington, Norwich Business School UEA, added: “The SEA project brings together a multi-disciplinary team from UEA whose collective expertise will inform value chain activities, from onshore seaweed nurseries and offshore farming to final seaweed-based products. The project will enable us to better understand consumer preferences and behaviors in order to evaluate product and place choices (co-location decisions) and scale-up opportunities. We can then assess the potential in developing competitive supply chains in East Anglia, from both supply and demand perspectives.”
