Mon, Aug 11, 2014 page6

• Spanish entrepreneurs enter into seaweed business

  • AFP, ORTIGUEIRA, Spain
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  Three young Spaniards in wetsuits plunge into the sea to harvest a culinary delicacy that promises them a way out of troubled financial waters: seaweed.

  Armed with stainless steel scythes, they swim in low tide from rock to rock cutting down codium seaweed and kombu kelp, which they gather up in bags.

  The trio — 35-year-old marine scientist Alberto Sanchez, his sister Maria and his friend, 33-year-old biologist Sergio Baamonde — carry the sea greens on foot to their car, parked at the top of nearby cliffs. They then transport the algae to a processing factory set up by the two friends in the Galician sea port of Ortigueira, northern Spain.

  

  Ardora Sea Preserves associate Alberto Sanchez collects seaweed off Picon beach in Ortigueira, Spain, on July 30.

  Photo: AFP

  “It is tough, but we are very motivated,” said Baamonde, who joined up with Sanchez in April 2012 to launch the seaweed business, with other prospects scarce in a country hit by an economic crisis that has left one in four people out of work.

  They have established a company — Ardora Sea Preserves, to sell edible seaweed, an industry that took root in the Galicia region in the 1980s.

  In 2012, sales of ecological seaweed and related foods in Galicia amounted to 3.8 million euros (US$5 million), the region’s Minister of Maritime and Environmental Affairs Rosa Quintana said.

  Baamonde worked at a laboratory in La Coruna University until “they cut the grant.”

  From 2007 to 2009 he worked as a consultant on seaweed farming to Galician fisheries associations as part of a regional government program.

  “Then the economic crisis hit and there was no money for the program,” Baamonde said, who found other jobs for a short period before entering into the seaweed business with Sanchez.

  “There is a gap in the market right now in Galicia for this type of gourmet seaweed product, and we are trying to fill it,” said Sanchez, who worked at a biomedical research center in Barcelona before launching the venture.

  “It took us a year to find the financing,” Sanchez said, sitting in a small office at their factory, which has been running since the start of the year at an industrial park in Ortigueira.

  The young entrepreneurs invested 300,000 euros, which allowed them to buy the land for the factory where they prepare seaweed for sale.

  “We want a product that differentiates us in terms of quality, the choice of raw material and the way we prepare it,” Sanchez said, stressing the ecological nature of their seaweed product when compared with that of their larger competitors.

  Instead of using machinery, much of the seaweed preparation, such as washing, is done by hand.

  Baamonde, Sanchez and Maria do everything from harvesting to preparation to sales of the seaweed — canned, fresh or dried — as well as finding new clients.

  Among their clients are chefs including Javier Olleros, who has one Michelin star, and Daniel Lopez, chef at the O Camino do Ingles restaurant in the Spanish city of Ferrol.

  “You can achieve flavors that people don’t expect,” Lopez said as he prepared a dish of hake wrapped in sea lettuce and marinated tuna garnished with codium seaweed while chatting with Baamonde about ways of preparing the algae.

  Baamonde and Sanchez are keen to pursue the scientific side of their business by seeking new environmentally friendly ways to process and grow seaweed.

  “Our plan is to invest a lot in research and development,” Baamonde said.

  “In the long term we want to work with other maritime produce such as sea urchins,” he said.
• Most Popular

  • 1

    LA Dodgers beat Braves to secure 7th straight win

  • 2

    Notes from Central Taiwan: Taiwan’s health system is going to erode, not collapse

  • 3

    PSG make final as Arsenal fall short

  • 4

    Taiwan celebrates V-E Day for first time

  • 5

    Taiwan lauds US House bills of support