Bradley, Clare 1,2
1 AgriSea New Zealand Seaweed Ltd, Paeroa, New Zealand, 2 Aotearoa New Zealand Seaweed Association, New Zealand
Correspondence: Clare Bradley Clare@agrisea.co.nz
In 1996 teachers, Jill Bradley and Keith Atwood relocated their family to small town New Zealand in search of seaweed after a working vacation on organic farms. Nearly three decades later, their son Tane and his wife Clare Bradley operate the business once known as Ocean Organics, now AgriSea, which creates liquid concentrates from the local seaweed Ecklonia radiata.
The company has grown from a garage hobby to a thriving national business in and exporting across the globe. This growth has been measured and steady, primarily due to the lack of NZ seaweed resource available in a sustainable manner.
For the past 26 years, AgriSea has relied on “beach cast” (seaweed washed upon the shore) after storms, however recent project partnerships means that AgriSea can start supporting both on-land and in-sea aquaculture of seaweed to feed into its value chain.
AgriSea are committed to being players in a bicircular economy and have partnered with New Zealand National Research agencies to develop high value products from its waste stream including nanocellulose hydrogels and extracts along with utilising the nutrient rich waters created from New Zealand’s farming and fertiliser management systems to grow seaweed.
Innovation and collaboration are not just buzz words for AgriSea they are in the families DNA. Building on networks around the globe they have many partnerships which span everything from seaweed gin to biomaterials, recently winning the NZ Hi-tech awards category for Māori company of the year.