Swelling tide of seaweed ingredients leads to wave of new products

Seaweed is showing up in everything from shampoos to snacks. But in the U.S., infrastructure and regulation lag behind. Dive in for the details.

For those of us who grew up splashing in northern oceans (for me, New Jersey), kelp decorated our summers. We stepped on slippery strands while walking the beach and pulled shreds of it from our hair and swimsuits after riding a wave.

It was the coastal equivalent of fallen branches on lawns; just so much botanical stuff. We barely noticed.

But these days, increasingly more people pay close attention to those aromatic, dark green ribbons, the brown seaweeds that comprise kelp. Other types of seaweed, broadly red and green, also involve aquaculture. But most domestic farming hinges on brown seaweed. Kelp ingredients are finding their way into lipsticks and chips; shampoos and burgers; sodas, noodles, breads, supplements and caramels. Even packaging can contain seaweed.

Marine algae is having a moment. States like Alaska have invested millions in fostering seaweed farming and processing. Brands are tapping research and development capital to explore how its properties might make hair more luxurious, or boost gut health.

And a prominent seaweed nonprofit, GreenWave, plans to launch the Kelp Innovation CoLab this fall, a program designed to accelerate seaweed product development in cosmetics and personal care.

"Science has spent a lot of time looking at what we can get with plants. Then you think about the ocean, and we've barely scratched the surface," says Sam Garwin, director of market development at GreenWave. More than 12,000 varieties of seaweed have been identified, but only about 0.1% of them get farmed today.

"We'll see a net-zero beauty sector become a thing that is powered by regeneratively farmed kelp," she says. "I think it's a next-level evolution of clean beauty."

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