Moderator

Interview:

1) What is your favourite seaweed dish?

That’s a hard one because there are so many different species of seaweed and so many different ways you can prepare them. I like combining milled seaweed power with water as a replacement for eggs when baking, that’s a great way to get some additional nutrients and use less eggs. I also like foraging for sea spaghetti as an ingredient for cheese quiches, that’s always been a favourite of mine. 

2) What needs to be done to stimulate the development of a strong European seaweed industry? 

A lot of things, simultaneously. We need guaranteed markets to buy seaweed, but at a scale and price that’s economically feasible, we need public acceptance for scalability in the marine environment, we need education and marketing to demonstrate the advantages of using products with seaweed, and we need scientific research to prove the ecosystem service benefits. 

It’s a lot, but everyone working in the seaweed world is Europe is dedicated, passionate, and motivated to make all these things happen.

3) How is Scotland doing when it comes to seaweeds?

Scotland has one of the best environments for temperate species of seaweed, which means high biomass kelps grow really well. We also have some of the best marine research facilities, making great strides in understanding how to optimise biomass yield, the compositional analysis of seaweeds, the effects of the external marine environment, and opportunities for colocation. 

Scotland also has great provenance. We are famous for our Salmon, our whisky, and now we’re on our way to make seaweed synonymous with Scotland.