A Scottish start-up has unveiled bold plans to “cultivate” a processing “hub” for the UK’s fast-growing seaweed industry.
Seaweed Enterprises has begun by snapping up the assets of failed Fife firm Mara Seaweed, saving seven jobs in Glenrothes.
Mara’s seaweed was sustainably sourced under Crown Estate licence from a 20-mile stretch of coastline around the East Neuk of Fife.
The new venture has ambitions to become the UK’s leading harvesting and processing “hub” for seaweed, serving farmers across Scotland and other locations around Britain.
Firm will maintain supplies across Scotland
A spokeswoman for the new business said it would, as Mara did, continue to supply customers including Jimmy Buchan’s Amity Fish Company in Peterhead, The Lobster Shop, Johnshaven, and The Mains of Drum, an independent garden centre in Banchory.
She added: “They are also looking forward to starting new conversations and negotiations with national and local authority agencies including Aberdeenshire Council.”
Seaweed Enterprises is co-founded and led by chief executive Pete Higgins, whose CV boasts a raft of firms he either launched on his own or with others. In 2019 he co-founded Springboard Scotland to help other businesses grow faster. Edinburgh-based Petaurum Ventures was launched the same year to help companies raise investment.
More recently, the 58-year-old businessman had a 15-month spell as CEO of Cupar-based vegan snack firm Growers Garden.
Mr Higgins is also a guest professor at the Zhejiang Yuexiu University of Foreign Language in China and executive team member at entrepreneurs group WeDO Scotland.
New business bolstered by Mara experience
Joining him at Seaweed Enterprises are two members of Mara’s senior management team, Arnie Sathiy and Clare Dean, with several years’ practical and commercial experience in the seaweed industry.
Their new business has already secured private investment to roll out its business plan.
It is hoped the firm will become a major seaweed processing hub, supporting sustainable business growth for the sector, using “market-leading technology”.
Big investment planned for Glenrothes
The company said “significant” investment in its Glenrothes site was key to its plans.
It aims to scale up the production of a range of species in demand from “a vast array of offtake channels already looking to seaweed for sustainable solutions”.
Mr Higgins said: “Seaweed is an extraordinarily beneficial natural resource whose potential is not yet fully realised.
“This is a tremendously exciting time for Seaweed Enterprises and the sustainable seaweed sector as a whole.
“Our state-of-the-art facility will offer not only volume much needed by many customers but, importantly, the versatility and refinement for higher value items.”
The global market for seaweed, either for eating or its use in cosmetics and healthcare products, was estimated to be worth nearly £14 billion in 2021. Experts say it is continuing to grow by around 10.5% a year.
According to Seaweed Enterprises, the industry in Scotland is “still an under-invested, untapped and highly fragmented” sector. The firm added: “Seaweed is a potent and abundant ocean resource packed full of nutritional, cosmetic and pharmaceutical benefits, as well as being an agricultural asset as both a fertiliser and foodstuff.”
Mara hit ‘severe’ cash crunch
Administrators for Mara had signalled “considerable” interest in the assets, with more than 20 inquiries received, before a closing date for offers on July 7.
FRP Advisory said the seaweed firm’s collapse in June was triggered by “severe” working capital issues following the withdrawal of funding for an expansion project.
Welcoming its sale, joint administrator Callum Carmichael said: “It is particularly rewarding that seven jobs have been saved and the future of an innovative food processing business has been secured.”
Conversation