On 3 October 2024, over 250 people gathered at De Pier in Scheveningen for the annual North Sea Seaweed conference. It was an inspiring day of insight, collaboration and innovation, all focused on attracting market players.

The event was opened by the Mayor of The Hague, Jan van Zanen, followed by a keynote speech from Vincent Doumeizel, Senior Advisor Ocean at the United Nations Global Compact and author of The Seaweed Revolution. Vincent highlighted the global crises we face and how seaweed could play a vital role in addressing these challenges.

Next, LauraHuff, Head of Sustainability Collaboration at Amazon Europe, spoke about North Sea Farm #1 and the exciting partnership between Amazon and North Sea Farmers to deliver this ground-breaking project as the world’s first commercial-scale seaweed farm within the offshore wind farm ‘Hollandse Kust Zuid’ (HKZ).

We then heard from Kajsa Olsson, Head of Marketing at Nordic Seafarm, and Robert Carleke, Innovation Ventures Manager at Inter IKEA Group, who shared their insights on the collaboration between their companies and the opportunities to make seaweed mainstream. Their perspectives on market opportunities and innovation generated a lot of interest.

This was followed by a panel discussion focusing on Europe's ambitions in the seaweed sector. The panel included:

• Maris Stulgis, Policy Officer for Blue Bio Economy, Algae and Marine Aquaculture, DG Mare - EU Commission

• Peter Paul Mertens, Director General for Fisheries and Large Water Bodies

• Meindert Stolk, Regional Minister for Economic Affairs & Innovation, Province of Zuid-Holland

• Joost Wouters, CEO The Seaweed Company

• Diederik Boomsma, Member of the Dutch House of Representatives, Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Safety and Nature

• André Hoogendijk, Director of BO Akkerbouw

After the plenary session, Sander Vroom, Sustainable Business Developer at Rabobank, officially opened the Expo, where 20 innovative entrepreneurs presented their seaweed-based products.

The day continued with breakout sessions covering a wide range of topics including the role of seaweed in food, climate action, biomaterials, bio stimulants and their production processes (presentations can be found at the bottom of the newsletter).

Roos van Vught - Heeringa of Royal NNZ Group concluded the event with an inspiring speech about her personal drive for sustainable change and NNZ's search for circular alternatives to their current packaging solutions. Eric Klarenbeek gave an overview of Weedware's potential solutions to NNZ's challenge. The conference dinner with over 100 guests rounded off the day with good food, rich discussions and networking.

Presentations North Sea Seaweed

We invite you to revisit the key presentations and discussions from the event by downloading the PDF presentations from our incredible speakers.