How to Grow Your Kelp and Sell It, Too
The following is the transcript of the first edition of Holdfast Conversations -- a series of recorded interviews with seaweed farmers and other industry experts. In this conversation, Lindsay Olsen, GreenWave’s Farmer Training Program Manager, speaks to Suzie Flores of Stonington Kelp Company in Connecticut, and Sam Garwin, GreenWave’s Market Innovation Strategist about sales and marketing strategies for small farmers.
Lindsay: Thanks to you both for being here today! This is the kickoff podcast as part of the farmer-focused Holdfast newsletter that is coming out in April. My name is Lindsay and I am the Farmer Training Program Manager at Greenwave. We've been working this spring to try and build out our farmer community, and sort of create a space to bring seaweed and shellfish farmers together, have a place to share learnings, trade tips and tricks, and generally just get to know one another and see who else is working in this space.
I’ll start off by introducing our two guests. The first is Sam Garwin, the Market Innovation Strategist at GreenWave. Sam has a long history working with businesses in the food sector. She comes from the sustainable meat industry where she oversaw and ran several craft butcher shops. And now she works with GreenWave in an advising role, helping businesses and organizations get off the ground and scale up to the next level. At GreenWave, Sam spends all of her time thinking about what happens when the kelp comes out of the water. She has a wealth of experience that she can lend to small farmers who are looking to build a business and a brand around their products. So, hi, Sam, thanks for joining!
Sam: Hi Lindsay. Thanks for having me.
Lindsay: And my next guest is Susie Flores, who was just recently awarded this year's Connecticut Outstanding Young Farmer award. Congratulations, Suzie! Very cool.
Suzie: Thank you so much. I squeaked in on that young part.
Lindsay: I don't know. I mean, I know that everybody can't see the camera, but I think you're looking really good!
[Laughter]
Lindsay: Suzie runs Stonington Kelp Company with her husband, Jay and their kids in Pawtucket, Connecticut. And she was among one of the first cohorts of GreenWave’s Farmers in Training back in 2017 and has now been farming sugar kelp for almost four years. Suzie has been working diligently to build a brand around her kelp, to get it out there and in front of people. She's got experience selling to restaurants as well as direct to eaters at farmers markets, online, and elsewhere. And I hear is now working to build out some processing operations as well. And Suzie is also one of the organizers behind the New England Kelp Harvest Week, so I'm excited to learn more about that. So, Suzie, thanks so much for being here.
Suzie: I am so excited to be here!
Lindsay: Awesome. Well, I want to kind of dig in on the strategic choices and maybe some of the serendipitous twists and turns of your business journey. This conversation is really going to focus more on the marketing and sales side of kelp farming, but I wonder just to kind of give everyone a visual of what your farm looks like. Could you start by just giving us a description of where your farm is, how far it is from shore, how you get there, how developed the area around your site is, etc.?
Suzie: Absolutely. I'd be very happy to. So my farm is located in Connecticut state waters. We are right where the New York, Rhode Island, and Connecticut water lines all sort of intersect. So my incoming tide is coming from New York and my outgoing tide is coming from Rhode Island. I'm about a 35-minute boat ride from my docks, which are located on the Pawcatuck River.
My farm site, as I mentioned, is located in Connecticut state waters, which means it's a little bit further out from the shoreline. We have a 10 acre farm site, but we're only using about four acres of it. We've been kind of slowly growing as we start to establish more demand for the kelp that we do wind up growing. And I hope that I answered your question.
Lindsay: Yeah, that's perfect. And then, just because we're kind of coming up on harvest season, can you describe a little bit about what the crop that you're growing this winter looks like, how many lines you have in the water, what types of yields you're looking to harvest the season, and what that's going to look like.
Suzie: That is always such a hard question for me to wrap my head around. I think depending on the mood, my anticipated yields are very low when I'm feeling a little bit less optimistic, and when I’m upbeat maybe they're a little bit high. So I outplanted eight spools this year, and each spool is about 200 feet of seed stock. And I am hoping that will yield anywhere between 8,000 - 16,000 pounds. I have a little bit of a different approach to harvesting in that I start harvesting as soon as my lab results all come back in, because I think I can move more that way. It also allows me to use the ocean as my refrigerator, so I can kind of keep the kelp cool, sell it on a weekly basis to people, for instance, rather than just doing one big, giant haul where you have a lot of stuff that you have to process all at once.
Lindsay: That makes sense. And, generally when you're harvesting, how, physically are you going about that? What kind of boat do you use, equipment, gear, etc?
Suzie: So I am very lucky in that I have three boats that we use on the seaweed farm. The first one is the barge, which we use to set our gear. It has a crane on it that we use to lift the heavy anchors out of the water in Fischer’s Island Sound. I have a pretty high-energy site, so I need really heavy anchors, and I need to really make sure that all of my gear is secure in order to keep everything safe. And then when it comes time to outplant, or tend the lines on the farm, I use a 19-foot Midland skiff, which was made in Coventry, Rhode Island in some guy's garage. It's a great boat. The hull acts like a sail a little bit of the time. Sometimes you really have to make sure the wind is very low. So that's more like the tending boat. It's a center console, and it's open to the elements, so it can be a little bit chilly. People tend to not want to come visit the farm with me on that boat.
And then we also have a 24-foot Privateer that we use for harvesting, which has a little crane that we can use to lift up the lines when I'm going out to harvest. If I have like 50 pounds worth of seaweed that I have to pull off the lines for various different restaurants or chefs, I can use either boat. It really depends on the wind. If I want to be warm and the wind is really low, I'll take the Privateer, because it's a little bit more protected and I can just harvest on the outside lines. But if I need to get into the inside lines, I tend to use the skiff just because it's lighter and it's easier to navigate on the actual farm.
Lindsay: I remember I got a chance to go visit Suzie's farm, back when I was a grad student in 2019. And I remember we cut some kelp into big plastic baskets and then brought it to a chef nearby. Is that still sort of the process that you're using to take small batches off your lines?
Suzie: Yeah, more or less. You were out there with me in a rainstorm! I remember really being impressed by your composure. That's more or less what I'm still doing. I'm trying to increase the weight, just being a little bit more efficient with the amount of fuel that I'm burning, but yeah, that's it. I was out today with a chef and another person who helps me out on the farm, Elizabeth. And we pulled off probably about 55 pounds.
Lindsay: Thanks Suzie. Well, Sam, I'm going to switch over to you. I have heard you speak before to different audiences and young kelp farmers -- young in the general sense, new to the industry -- about the importance of diversifying sales strategy and using a whole kelp or a whole crop utilization. I was just sort of curious, when you are speaking to people who are new to seaweed farming and just starting out, why is it important to identify multiple sales channels? And what does that look like?
Sam: Yeah, that's a great question. It has a lot to do with what Suzie was just saying about how difficult it is to anticipate your yields. So some years you might end up with more seaweed than you're expecting and, in those situations, if you are counting on one very niche market, let's say, fresh sales directly to restaurants, you might have trouble moving it all. And then you have the rest of your yield, of your harvest, that you've spent all that time and energy and money growing with no place to sell it. And so with a more diverse sales strategy, you can kind of anticipate that, and have a plan for all of the kelp, not just the pristine kelp that is good for high-end fresh food consumption.
Another example is that depending on what happens in the ocean. The ocean turns over thousands of times a day, the water around your specific kelp, and so it could be that one year you get a mussel set directly on your kelp, and there's nothing you can do about that. And so some of the lower margin options for kelp, such as fertilizer or animal feed, those are really great ways to ensure that a biofouled crop still nets you something, even if it's not the highest possible margin that you can get.
Lindsay: Great. Thanks, Sam. Suzie, is that something that you've also utilized on your farm as well? You were just speaking about taking these small 50-pound harvest batches to a couple of different chefs. What do you do if you can't sell your whole crop at that high price point?
Suzie: Yes. That is one of the most beautiful things about kelp, is it doesn't just have one purpose that it can potentially serve. So first and foremost, I try to sell seaweed fresh to a human to eat as food. Then the second would be, if I can't sell it fresh, I would consider stabilizing it as a frozen food or a dehydrated food. And then it just kind of trickles down. The next step would be well, can I dry it? If not for food purposes, but maybe in an artisanal soap, or we're doing some bath balm stuff like that, like cosmetics. And then the next step down from that is using it as a soil input in some capacity.
Lindsay: Cool. So you mentioned you're experimenting with some of these other products. What sort of processing does that require? And what are some of the best practices that you've developed in terms of keeping different grades of kelp; for that high-end food product that's going to those chefs, and then what's more flexible as you kind of move down those tiers, as you were speaking of?
Suzie: It kind of correlates to the price point. So the highest price point that you're going to get is for that food-grade kelp. That’s what’s going to have the most requirements around it. And in the State of Connecticut, I operate under a HACCP plan that has been approved by our regulatory bodies. You have to have various different permits depending on how you're going to sell your kelp. So if you're just selling it fresh, you have your aquaculture license. Boom, you can sell it off. If you're going to be stabilizing it in any way, you need to consider having some sort of manufacturing license, which would be either a food manufacturing permit at your own facility, food manufacturing permit through some sort of commercial kitchen, or a cottage manufacturing permit. So the costs associated with the permitting processes, and just the time and the labor that goes into having it for food, I think really demands that higher price point.
But then the requirements around it just kind of become less and less stringent or restrictive as you go down the list. And then obviously the bottom tier of that being for fertilizer. There, you're just kind of slopping the kelp onto your boat, you don't have to worry about any biofouling or anything like that, because in fact, that's probably better for whatever soil it's going to be sitting on top of. And I shouldn't say fertilizer, it's a soil input. Then when we're drying it for cosmetics, we're hanging it in greenhouses. We're not allowing it to kind of just sit out in the open sun to be decimated by bugs and animals and things like that.
Lindsay: You mentioned there was extra permitting involved. Can you speak a little bit more about what exact permits you had to apply for to do that first-stage processing on your own, and what the requirements were?
Suzie: Yeah, absolutely. So over the course of the years of my selling, I think the first year we just kind of operated underneath our HACCP plan. Then in the second year, we used what's called a cottage license. A cottage license allows you to stabilize your seaweed and sell additional products beyond just your fresh kelp. And then the next year we looked into the food manufacturing permit, which you can get through a lot of commercial kitchens that are considered classified commercial kitchens. All of this stuff in Connecticut is found at the Department of Consumer Protection. But it's going to vary state by state. And then the last stage is a food manufacturing permit that you get to allow you to essentially sell your products retail at other stores.
Lindsay: Sam, I know that you've been working to try and crack the nut around early-stage processing or stabilization for kelp. And you've been working with a couple of different groups and organizations in New England trying to figure out what are ways to extend the shelf life of that raw sugar kelp, really keeping it fresh and at that high-level, food-grade product. Can you talk a little bit more about what you're finding and what those conversations are leading to?
Sam: Absolutely. So this is something that is a particular concern for kelp farmers because kelp has a very short shelf life, but it's not unique in that. And that's something that I like to highlight a lot, almost all agricultural products when they are ready to be harvested, have a very short shelf life. And the only way that we have, say flour, year-round is that we figured out how to, as a society, get our grains out of the fields very, very efficiently exactly when they are ready, when they are at the right level of dryness, maturity, all of that. And we figured out how to stabilize them and store them so that we can have flour and other wheat products year-round. So we need to figure out the same thing for kelp, otherwise, what will end up happening, and what is kind of the current dynamic, as Suzie pointed out, the harvest season is very, very short. If you're lucky, you can start harvesting in March, but it's definitely over by June. (At least in the Northeast, I don't want to generalize. I realized there might be some people listening to this in other parts of the world and the country.) But in any case with that really short harvesting window, if you want to be selling all year round, you're going to have to figure out a way to stabilize it.
So there's a couple of different angles that we're working on. One is simply extending the shelf life of fresh sugar kelp so that it can be sold to more restaurants, through foodservice and direct-to-consumer more efficiently. We’re doing some studies, so microbial and respiration rate studies on sugar kelp to find out what kind of packaging might be best. If we want to see it in, say Trader Joe's, which is my grocery store around the corner, how do we package sugar kelp so that it could be right next to spinach or kale on the shelf, even if it is only for a number of months? So that's one angle that we're working on. And we'd really like to engage existing seafood processors in that because they already have facilities that are on the water and frequently they are used to seasonality. Like if you take lobster processors in Maine, they actually have a down season when there are no lobsters for them to process. And so if we could be using that existing infrastructure to process and stabilize kelp, that would be fantastic.
But then there's some other options that we're looking at as well. You know, in terms of stabilization, as Suzie mentioned it's a lot for an individual producer to scale up. For other agricultural products there are what's called co-packers or co-manufacturers. And these are commercial kitchens that are actually designed to take in a farmer’s raw crops and transform them into something shelf-stable. And we know how to do this for things like carrots and cucumbers. We have established food-safe processes to turn them from a raw product to a shelf-stable one. And so we're working with a group called Harvest Kitchen, which is connected with Farm Fresh Rhode Island, to develop some recipes like that for kelp. So that kelp farmers could take their kelp to a commercial kitchen, have it stabilized, and then still retain ownership of it so that year-round they can sell it at farmers markets, online, or wherever else. Those are kind of the two angles we're working on, in addition to being in close conversations with regulators about developing regulations, because there is so little federal guidance that right now, each state is individually working on how to handle kelp as a food product.
Lindsay: Great. Thanks for sharing that. Suzie, you, mentioned you're drying some kelp in greenhouses. Sam, what is sort of the general guidance and best principles around drying kelp as a form of stabilization? Is that something that farmers can do on their own without involving a third party?
Sam: So it varies state by state right now. This is a hot topic. It is currently under discussion. The question around drying is really a matter of whether these lower-tech options such as greenhouses are food safe. And if they are not deemed food-safe, then what are the mechanisms to make them so? Are there kill steps that we could put in after those low-tech drying options that would still allow seaweed to be dried in a high volume, low-cost way right when it comes out of the water and then still have it be able to be used for food later?
So again, I'll point out other agricultural products like grains, which are frequently just dried in a field. Is a field food safe? I don't know if that would be considered food safe. There's a lot of evolving perspectives on what is, and is not a food-safe place to dry seaweed.
What many producers will do right now if they're using kelp and they're drying is getting commercial dehydrators. And that works, there's no question that it works. It's used for all kinds of other things like jerky and dried fruit chips and that kind of stuff, but it's expensive. It's very expensive. It relies on electricity. And so unless you've got a renewable source of electricity, you're spending a lot of energy and a lot of time bringing this crop that is 90% water down to something that is considered to have a limited amount of water activity and therefore prevents microbial growth. So a very hot topic, lots of discussion. I think we'll be hearing a lot more over the next couple of years.
Lindsay: Thanks, Sam. Suzie you're smiling. What have you experienced with drying your kelp?
Suzie: I will say that when I have dried it for my family and I to eat, it's as simple as leaving it out in the sun, like on a little bit of a windy day, like a day like today would be fabulous. And it'll dry with no additional energy applied to it, it's going to dry in probably two hours in a sunny spot with southern exposure. It dries out pretty fast out of the water, it really does want to be in the water. It's considered a raw agricultural commodity by the FDA, which usually means it can be dried. So, you know, it's kind of to be determined, but Sam's correct. The commercial dehydrators use a lot of energy. They take a long time to reduce the water activity down to the levels that are recommended currently. And they're not cheap to get ones that can process a lot of volume. It's also not something that's that standard in that many commercial kitchens either. I was surprised by that.
Lindsay: Interesting. Well, I want to shift the conversation a little bit towards the sales and marketing side of things. I know that a lot of questions I hear from farmers when they're just starting out is, what if there's no market for my kelp? Or if there's no one who's buying kelp in my area, how am I supposed to sell it? And Sam, I wondered if you might give some sort of key words of advice. What are some sort of general tips that you give farmers who are looking to get into seaweed farming, and not only learn the ropes of how to grow a great product and get good at farming, but then also go about the whole separate job of marketing their product either to restaurants or individuals and convincing folks to eat? It sounds like a lot of work.
Sam: Yeah. It is a lot of work. I think that first and foremost, and this is an issue with land farming as well, you need to decide whether you want to just be a farmer or whether you want to be a business owner, and that involves the sales and marketing side. And if you're more interested in just the farming piece, it's really wise to go out and find a wholesale buyer who can just take it all off your hands at once. But know that you are going to get a lower price for that because they're taking on all the work of stabilizing it, packaging it, marketing it, all of that adds value. And so you're going to be missing out on that value if you choose to not do those direct sales or have direct relationships with the end customers.
If you do want to develop these relationships I think one of the keys is really to start small. So this is really about relationship development. It's a brand new product. People don't know what to do with it. Free samples are a must when you're starting out. Physically showing up, and I know COVID makes this hard, but if you can show up in person, help people experiment with it, if you have recipes that you've tried on your own. Bringing a sample of a prepared kelp product can also help to kind of illuminate what the options are. But it really is about that relationship and finding people who believe in what you're doing, and want to work with you and who are prepared to grow with you and help you work through whatever growing pains you have in terms of not just production, but also the logistics, figuring out how to get it out of the water, what packaging is going to look like. You know, all of these things are the things that we don't often think about in the early days of starting a business, but will ultimately result in continued success and continued sales or not.
Lindsay: Thanks, Sam. Suzie, how has this worked for you? You came into seaweed farming as part of the farmer training cohort, and now you're a rising star in the Connecticut farming industry. But how do you sort of balance the reality of being a farmer and also being a businesswoman, and pushing your product? What has that journey been like for you?
Suzie: I think that Sam hit the nail on the head when she said that you have to think about if all you want to do is be a farmer, or you're actually going to develop a business. Nobody is going to hand it to you. It's not a get-rich-quick scheme by any stretch. It's a lot of work and it's not just the physical labor of going out on the farm. It is sales and marketing and it is thinking through a lot of operational and logistical stuff. From delivery logistics, but also understanding your own product and its capacity, how long it can be shelf-stable, how fast you can get it to where it needs to go. A lot of people have a different expectation for products that they want to put on their menu. You really have to do a lot of education with chefs, with people at markets. I think Sam was totally right when she said you need to start small. My mom's always like, “Oh, you should, you know, partner with Target and get them to carry the seaweed scrubs that you make,” but I'm not going to be able to produce that many products. Producing consistently is really important because you don't want to wind up selling out too fast and burning everybody. You want to make sure that you can promise on everything that you deliver. It's a lot. And I think that every year I've made a whole bunch of mistakes that have turned into really wonderful lessons.
One of the things too, and this is something that I think GreenWave taught me in their service to emerging farmers, they kind of represent this hub of resources where farmers could have access to information around gear, etc, and what are some strategies for getting through this hiccup in the permitting process, or site selection. They're this sort of collection of information that everybody has access to. And so in taking that sort of shared open resource model and bringing it to the post-harvest side of things, I have found that it's really useful for me to work with other small and medium-sized farmers. And so we've been kind of taking from GreenWave’s lead that cooperative approach where we are working together to help each other meet supply issues, and that's actually been working out really well. It also allows us to share packaging materials when we're making big purchases. And it allows us to share in the marketing that we're doing. Because the seaweed industry in Southern New England is still growing, we're not a threat to each other as farmers. Right now we're all trying to kind of uplift the idea that sugar kelp is something that everybody should be eating. So we all kind of have the same goal. So it's actually been working out very, very well. It's taken a lot of stress off of me. It's fun to kind of have other people that I can do the boring stuff with. You know, the logistical planning and invoicing and just crap like that, that isn't being on a boat.
Lindsay: Oh, that's really great to hear. That kind of leads to my next question about the upcoming New England Kelp Harvest week from April 17th to 25th. Which I know is a collaboration between you and several other farmers in Southern New England. Can you talk more about how that came to be and what your vision is for the week?
Suzie: Well, like all good ideas, it was stolen from the people up in Maine. Not that all good ideas come from the people up in Maine, but that it was stolen. Maine has done a seaweed week where they essentially are trying to celebrate the seaweed harvest. And they're trying to create awareness and just get restaurants to use locally cultivated crops. So we just essentially took that idea and brought it back down to our region. We kind of focused in Connecticut this year. The goal though would be to expand to other seaweed farmers in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, whoever would want to participate. We are just a group of kelp farmers going out and banging on restaurant doors and just saying like, “Hey, you should serve kelp this week!” And we'll do a lot of marketing and Instagram posting, and there's going to be some educational programming involved. We are very, very lucky to have the support of the Yellow Farmhouse, which is a nonprofit who's doing, I think, four different seaweed-centered programs that they're offering to people virtually. And I think we have right around 50 restaurants throughout the state of Connecticut that are going to be participating. We've been very lucky to have the support of GreenWave and Sea Grant, and of Southern Connecticut University. We're just so lucky to have the support of all these people, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to do it. It's also been a wonderful educational experience. At least, even for me just talking to new chefs about it, I've gotten better at describing how to use it and at walking them through the blanching process so that they understand how to keep it in their walk-in freezers for an indeterminate amount of time. So it's been wonderful and it's really been forcing me to focus.
Lindsay: Oh, that's great. Where can folks go to learn more about that opportunity?
Suzie: So if you go to www.newenglandkelp.com you'll be able to find information about the different educational programming that people can sign up for. And you'll also be able to see a list of all of the participating restaurants, breweries, markets, and cafes that are going to be participating. Generally speaking, they're mostly along the Connecticut shoreline, we dip into Rhode Island a little bit in Westerly, Rhode Island, and then it goes all the way down to Greenwich, Connecticut.
Lindsay: Awesome. I encourage everyone to check that out and I look forward to hearing a recap. I want to wrap up by just asking both of you, if you had to distill your token words of advice for farmers who are coming up on their first harvest and looking to kind of build those first partnerships to get their product out there. What advice do you have, and what words of wisdom would you impart? Sam?
Sam: Well, I would say if a farmer doesn't have their own kelp to harvest this year, I would highly recommend finding another farmer who you can kind of apprentice yourself to. Particularly with the harvest and processing, whatever form that might take. Kelp is unlike any other agricultural product that I have ever worked with, and I think most people would agree with that. It just does not behave the way that you think it will. So get your hands on it, physically understand what it means to work with it, and become your own best first customer. I think that you need to know it and love it if you're going to be able to sell it to someone else.
Lindsay: Great advice. Thanks, Sam. Suzie?
Suzie: I would just say, figure out a way to start small because growing sugar kelp is unique in that you're out planting right around Thanksgiving and then you don't start harvesting until mid-March or April, and then your harvest season is going to be so short that even though I'm in my fourth harvest, everything still feels so new because I have such a short time where I'm actually able to learn, make mistakes and try again. So I would definitely recommend starting small and developing a proper business plan. Which you will have to adjust over the course of the years as you start to learn more about your site and you learn more about what you actually like doing with the seaweed farm. And then, don't be afraid to seek out other farmers.
I think that just because this industry is so new and it's growing, it's a really lovely community that I have found. And I see it growing and I really, really like that. So, you know, reach out to other businesses and see if you can kind of think about some sort of collaboration.
Oh, the other thing I would suggest to any new starting farmer… This something my mom told me to do, and I actually have found that it has served me very well. If you can't find customers for your seaweed, find either a farm or some sort of CSA program where you can donate your seaweed, because it's going to do a couple of different things for you. It's going to, first of all, just be a wonderful gift that you're giving to the world, offering free food that you grow back to your community, but it also is going to give you that opportunity to talk through how to use it and how to package it. It's going to make you think through all of those things that you would like to have figured out before you start selling it. I found that to be a really wonderful exercise in many ways. And it also just kind of educates your community about what you're doing. So I would definitely recommend finding a local kitchen, something that's out there kind of feeding your local community that you can partner with.
Lindsay: Wonderful, really great advice. Well, thank you both so much for joining for our inaugural podcast. It's really nice to speak with both of you. I think you both really bring a lot of insight and wisdom to people who are enthusiastic and eager to get going, but maybe a little bit overwhelmed. And it's just really nice to hear both of your voices in the room. So thanks for being here.
Suzie: It was awesome. This is such a great idea, Lindsay. I love it.
Sam: Yes. Thank you for having us, Lindsay.