Franchising the future of seaweed

Swedish start-up company KOASTAL is testing an innovative business model for large scale sustainable sugar kelp cultivation on the west coast of Sweden. The idea is to create a franchise concept that supports small-scale players, including fishers, with everything from permits and equipment to training and a guaranteed purchase of their harvest.

KOASTAL currently has six farms in operation and 10 permits for seaweed aquaculture. The business is built around a franchise model that helps fishers and others interested in seaweed farming to overcome the many entry barriers to seaweed farming. KOASTAL helps with the farm setup including permits, equipment, seedlings and market channels including a buy-back guarantee for the crops. The fishers then operate the seaweed farms with input from KOASTAL on how to optimise production. 

The vision is to establish seaweed farming as a well-integrated part of the seafood value chain, where fishers can build on their existing infrastructure and knowledge to diversify their income during the winter/early spring when the harvest takes place. At the same time, the KOASTAL network of farms ensures reliable and consistent delivery of high-quality seaweed to large-scale buyers of seaweed. For seaweed buyers, KOASTAL is a reliable partner supplying seaweed from several farms, which reduces the production risk. 

Tackling seaweed farming challenges

Seaweed farming as a franchise is an innovative idea in Sweden and it is also unfamiliar to many fishers, making it a challenge to convince them to start farming. Therefore, much work has gone into building trust and to demonstrate profitability using pilot farms. 

Another challenge in seaweed farming is the production cost relative to market prices and the high seasonality with harvest taking place in only a few weeks of the year. To make seaweed farming profitable, there is a need for efficient logistic- and market chains. The KOASTAL model offer a potential solution by using fishers’ existing infrastructure, bringing costs down, and building a network of farms facilitating an efficient production system. 

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