Environmental impact analysis of seaweed food products
2020-01-27
In trying to reduce the eco- footprint of society, companies, governments and consumers are increasingly shifting towards more plant-based diets. To contribute to this shift, our foundation is involved in a new project to quantify the environmental impact of seaweed for food products. Seaweed is a sustainable, high-protein crop with a salty taste. It’s characteristics can play an interesting (and tasty) role in shift towards more plant-based. But what is the footprint of seaweed? What can we say about the environmental impact of seaweed in food products?
To address these questions, we will gather data together with seaweed entrepreneurs from the Seaweed Platform community. The data-analysis will focus on the current and future production of seaweed for food as well as on (almost) all of the segments of the value chain. This methods is also known as a Life Cycle Analysis. An important aspect of this research is the nutritional value of seaweed in food products. This way, a full insight can be offered into the environmental effects that seaweed can achieve in (future) diets.
This is one of the first times that real and practical data from the sector is used for this type of analysis. With this approach, we aim to create (and share) valuable information for the entire seaweed sector to build a safe, sustainable and sufficient seaweed sector! We work together with project partners Wageningen University, Wageningen Economic Research and Blonck consultants; the project is partially funded from the ProSeaweed program. We are expecting our first results mid-June.
Note: In this phase of the project, we are still looking for functional seaweed food products to be included in the analysis! For instance seaweed protein powder. If you have any suggestions for this type of product, please contact Mila via mila@noordzeeboerderij.nl
For more information, visit the project page.
