AlgaeVALOR: Transforming seaweed side streams into new opportunities

2025-02-10

Seaweed is increasingly recognised as a key resource for building a sustainable future. Vincent Doumeizel, Founder of the Global Seaweed Coalition, calls it "the greatest untapped resource on the planet". The versatility of seaweed allows for applications ranging from biostimulants and food ingredients to building materials and proteins. Yet much of the residual biomass from these extraction processes remains untapped.

The common challenge in the 'green-blue sector' is to add value to every aspect of seaweed. While seaweed already has a sustainable outlook and the North West European (NWE) region is considered quite resource efficient, more effort and innovation should be put into creating a circular economy. In the case of seaweed, most processors only focus on one aspect of the seaweed, while the rest is discarded. This is a significant missed opportunity and with projects like Algae VALOR, we aim to change this by valorising these seaweed side streams and transforming what was once considered waste into valuable resources.

Unlocking the potential of seaweed side streams

The overall objective of this project is to fully valorise seaweed in the NWE region. By using both brown and green seaweed, which are very common in the NWE region, this project aims to create a new innovative business case and circular approach to seaweed. As the lead partner in AlgaeVALOR, North Sea Farmers is committed to demonstrating how residual seaweed biomass can drive innovation and circularity in the value chain. By disseminating the project's findings and fostering collaboration, we aim to create a ripple effect that inspires B2B connections and unlocks the untapped potential of seaweed side streams.

Valorising seaweed biomass offers several key benefits:

Building a circular economy: Seaweed side streams can be used as raw materials for new processes and products, minimising waste and contributing to a more circular approach to resource management.
Driving economic growth: Turning residual streams into valuable products opens new revenue streams, stimulates market growth, and encourages the development of innovative industries.
Enhancing efficiency: Optimising the use of every part of the seaweed biomass can reduce production and operational costs while improving sustainability.

Collaborative Innovation

The Algae VALOR project is an example of the power of collaboration in creating value from seaweed residues. By partnering with innovative companies and research institutes, the project demonstrates how seaweed side streams can fuel innovation across different industries:

Zeefier - Sustainable textile dyes: Zeefier uses seaweed residues to produce environmentally friendly textile dyes, reducing reliance on synthetic chemicals.

Blue Blocks - Construction materials: Blue Blocks incorporates seaweed biomass into construction materials, combining sustainability with durability.

Spaak Circular Solutions - Metrics for circularity: Spaak Circular Solutions has developed a metrics dashboard to track and evaluate the valorisation process, providing a crucial tool for scaling these efforts.

Algaia & The Seaweed Company: These existing seaweed companies are processing seaweed and have available side-streams that the above companies can assess for their valorisation potential. This is important because if this is successful, these supply chains can be scaled very fast.

University of Ghent: Is experimenting with Ulva cultivation onshore. Side streams of this experimental supply chain will also be tested for the valorisation potential to support a potential future scale-up scenario.

Collaborating towards the seaweed transition

The above organisations are at the cutting-edge of this transformation and highly motivated to make this supply chain ready for commercial scale-up. North Sea Farmers as European Seaweed Association aims to share all relevant information of this project and its outcomes with the European seaweed industry and its stakeholders. Towards the end of the year we will organize a webinar together with our dissemination partner Blue Cluster to share the outcomes of the project. Furthermore, on 16 October all of the project partners will be present at the North Sea Seaweed 2025 event in Rotterdam. Reach out to us if you want to attend these events.

The project is co-funded by the European Union.