Kelp CoLab: Unlocking Seaweed Ingredient Innovation
Kelp is a powerhouse regenerative crop, but market momentum hasn’t caught up to its potential. Emerging brands have tried to create products featuring kelp as a hero ingredient, but this approach hasn’t always translated to market success.
If we want to build a scalable, resilient seaweed industry, it’s time to shift focus from kelp as the star of niche products and instead leverage it as a versatile, functional ingredient that adds behind-the-scenes value across food, beauty, and personal care.
“Brands are excited about kelp,” says Grace Collery, Senior Market Development Program Manager at GreenWave. “But we hear the same thing again and again, ‘We love the idea—we just don’t know how to work with it.’”
Open for applications in fall 2025, GreenWave’s new Kelp CoLab program is designed to address this question and open market pathways for regeneratively farmed kelp. It will create a collaborative platform for brands, ingredient suppliers, and technical experts to join forces and co-develop high-performance, sustainable product formulations that employ kelp-based ingredient solutions.
Rather than focusing on individual products, Kelp CoLab will tackle shared industry challenges. A multinational anchor company sets the program’s focus and defines success metrics for new kelp-based solutions, providing guidance for cohort members on product development and solution outcomes.
For this inaugural cohort, Unilever Foundry—a global leader in sustainable product innovation—will bring deep expertise, market insight, and a strong commitment to advancing innovative solutions. Over the course of a 10-month collaboration, participants investigate how kelp’s natural properties—like its bioactives and functional components—can be harnessed to meet brands’ formulation needs. This year’s program will focus on innovations in the personal care space, where kelp extracts offer benefits like hydration, skin barrier support, and anti-inflammatory properties, along with natural emulsification and texture-enhancing functions.
Independent ingredient R&D and product formulation can be expensive and time-consuming, especially for smaller or mid-sized companies. Kelp CoLab alleviates that burden, enabling participants to share technical learnings, tap into expert guidance, and reduce the costs and risks of developing new ingredient solutions.
Alongside this research process, brands will gain hands-on experience working with kelp suppliers and product development experts. They’ll also have the opportunity to visit regenerative kelp farms, strengthening their connection to the supply chain and the farmers growing their ingredients.
“Everyone's so tired of greenwashing,” says Sam Garwin, GreenWave’s Director of Market Development. “This is more than just an R&D program—it’s a chance to be part of something bigger, to help unlock the potential of this ingredient and position brands as legitimate leaders in sustainable innovation.”
A central goal of Kelp CoLab is to replace isolated, duplicative efforts with shared progress. Too often companies work in silos, spending time and resources solving the same problems in parallel. Kelp CoLab is built to change that norm.
"No one company can build this market alone. Innovation is hard enough already, and not to mention expensive,” says Sam. “But when companies collaborate, they can learn from each other and get to solutions faster, instead of everyone reinventing the wheel.”
For more than a decade, GreenWave has worked as a trusted nonprofit building the seaweed value chain, championing collaboration over competition to ensure kelp innovation benefits everyone—from farmers on the water to consumers at the shelf. This work is a transformational reimagining of kelp’s role—positioning it as a central force in consumer product enhancement and pioneering strategies that accelerate seaweed’s entry into everyday applications. For farmers, that means a growing market and a clearer path to scale.
“We’re here to build a resilient seaweed farming sector,” Sam explains. “That means designing value chains that work for farmers, for brands, and for the environment. We want to avoid the business-as-usual models and build something better.”
Kelp CoLab is now accepting applications from forward-thinking personal care brands interested in exploring kelp’s potential in their formulations. Emerging and established brands ready to lead innovation with kelp-based ingredients and shape the next wave of sustainable ocean beauty are encouraged to apply. Applications close October 6, 2025
Learn more and apply at kelpcolab.org.
