Kelp Economy with Majid Hajibeigy, Ecopreneur @ Canadian Pacifico Seaweeds

Ho, today on the show we have Majid Hajibeigi. Majid is the co-founder of Seaweed Network. They are creating the industry. They are the glue in the middle of the kelp industry specifically in British Columbia, specifically in Canada. They're also operating in the Americas and Europe. Majid and I get into an awesome conversation. He brought a lot

of really really good energy about ecology, biodiversity, about farming, about storytelling. There's a lot that goes into running a business that is developing markets. We cover the timeline of his understanding of the kelp industry. Defined what the kelp industry even means and why it's important and a couple other surprise topics that were very

inspiring to me. I really appreciated his energy. Um, I I walk away with a lot of inspiration uh, about this place I knew nothing about which is called the kelp space. Thank you as always to our sponsors, CleanTech Growth Lab. If you're looking to grow in CleanTech, they are the people to talk to and the

producers of this podcast, Crazen Friends always doing a beautiful job. And with that, I give you Majid. Ho, here we are, another episode of The Grove. Shout to the sponsors mentioned just before we press record, but without them, it would not be possible to interview awesome people building awesome things like Majid. Welcome.

Thank you. I appreciate your time, man. Thank you for the the energy and the the excitement. I'm happy to talk about kelp. Then let's talk about kelp. So, before we Well, before we get into kelp, let's talk about you. If you give a brief introduction of you you where you've been and and what

you're building. Yeah, man. I appreciate the question. Um, Yeah, I started off in in the world of animal biology. I was in university studying to become a wildlife vet and uh quickly I found that I couldn't hack it with all the sick animals and mostly the chemistry. And so I moved over towards ecology and and wildlife

studies and I realized more and more that I didn't want to be in an office with sick animals. I wanted to be outdoors in the environment. I did have an agricultural background and my university program was very flexible and I was able to study courses in plant biology, ecology, nutrition and anything general agricultural studies. And I

wanted to find a cool unique way to contribute to to climate change and to contribute to well, in a positive way. And I contribute to to our environment but also I was always a hustler and you know, I needed to to have a fair income.

I'm always a a big fan of for-profit conservation as opposed to, you know, always requiring grants and whatnot to scale them. So yeah, I wanted to create a business that supported me and allowed you to travel and and give me the freedom that I needed and wanted but also allowed me to work in the environments

and doing the work that I wanted to do. And so I I got a random opportunity working with the the kelp guru, Professor Louis Druehl, out in a small town on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Little town called Bamfield. We got about a couple hundred people there in the winter.

And yeah, he just he embraced me and brought me into his whole world of kelp. You know, my my background was mostly in environmental studies and so I actually had very little marine botany in in my courses. So he taught me pretty much everything I know about kelp.

And um and then it just kind of snowballed. I think the universe just lined up a couple stars for me and I I seized the opportunity that I'm having that moment and one opportunity kept leading to another and and then our our country is is I'm blessed to live in Canada allowed us to

get a lot of government stuff funding and support to scale our business and then you know how it is. One little piece leads to another and and now we're here. How long ago was it that you were introduced to that kelp guru?

Uh 2017 2018. Um I think I met him in '17 and then I started working for him in 2018. And then yeah, started off the company a year after that. Yeah, so yeah, so so the company about six or six or seven years now? Yeah, 2019 is when we we launched it. So now it's been a year.

Okay. So all right, so so to further set the stage, so um you had gone through about of school had a change of heart and took a brief I don't know break or sabbatical if that's is that even an accurate word got introduced Yeah, actually I took a break in the middle Well, so

I kind of dropped out of university to be honest. I they told me that I was a little bit frustrated with the system. I wasn't able to get to all the courses that you know were advanced chemistry and then I couldn't get to my passion and do the work I wanted to do and I

dropped out and then I did wildland firefighting for a little while. And while I was doing wildland firefighting some of my older mentors and older friends that were you know like 10 years older than me they were like, you know I dropped out of school too and everything worked out great for me, but

you're so close. You're in your last you know you're in your last year. So I can't like I would I would advise that you go and finish that off. And they actually were the ones the ones that dropped out of university were the ones that convinced me to go back. And so I just you know it

was more of my thing of like ah I can't I can't lose now. Like I'm so close to the last year or two, right? So I went back and finished it off and then um and then I got caught up with Louie and then he he invited me over to Ben Field and shot a lot of them there.

Cool. So, yeah, so I appreciate the the context. Uh the reason I ask is cuz uh something I something I love to know out of all those experiences, it can be any of them. Can be any one of them, whatever you want. But, if we could just focus on two things that you feel like

um significantly impact how you navigate building uh your hemp business now from any of those prior experiences. Cool. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I I would say Louie what Louie taught me would with my my mentor he um the principles, the ethics, not just the science and biology it taught, but also like the

the way he does business and the way he carries himself in in the universe that that had a big impact. Um And then I guess the rest of it was really um yeah, I mean my my philosophy on like on the different things I got, you know, for-profit conservation and and um academics and you know, I I always I

always stayed involved in academia and I always stayed a mentor to to some of the university students that I came up with and um and I they always told me they're like, "Nobody talks to me the way you do. You keep it so real and you tell me things I You know what I mean? So, I just keep it

real and like if you want to just get through this course or this like program, this is how you and get through it." Sorry, excuse the language. Um but you got to get get through it and use those skills to actually apply them in the real world and so um I guess the hustle in me just kind of

like let the rest of the way through. All right, so then so then let's take it from uh Had you Had you ever imagined yourself as someone that would start a business? Uh to be honest, when I was younger, I always had like a No, I didn't. I always had a thing about businessmen and like

you know, I just felt like they were ripping people off and their suits and this and that and then I just didn't have that trust for them. But then I got older and I realized, okay, cool. Like, you could do business in a way that, you know, doesn't really it helps yourself and not people around you. And then

there's a lot of businessmen that like, man, what I that uh that just they have more resources to do more good. In in the world of ecology, in the world of like marine biology, animal, you know, all that kind of stuff, we have a softer personality um you know, a lot of times people around

me were like, oh, like I only want to make get off 56,000 a year. I just want to do good for the planet. It have this there's this nuance of like, if you make a lot of money and if you're like doing well financially, then you're doing bad for the planet.

You know, and that that stigma and and um and I was like, well, that don't make sense cuz if you're let's say you're you're you're really really into um ecologist or, you know, someone that has a lot to contribute, but now you can't pay 50, 60,000 a year do something. You have two, three jobs

on the side to pay your bills and those jobs that you have on the side, that's distracting you from your actual work. You know what I mean? And so, if if marine biologists were making more, if ecologists, if environmentalists, whatever were making more, then they could focus on that important work more.

Um I just like to use the example of like basketball players, soccer players. I mean, they get paid millions of dollars to bounce a ball down a court. And and I don't knock their hustle because like Kobe, LeBron, like Shaq, they they've done a lot of really important things for the youth and they inspired a lot of people,

right? Like I mean, here's when I like heard from you California. So, you you must know the whole Kobe energy and and you know, it's like them inspiring just one youth that is involved in my they got getting more. You know what I mean? So, I'm not trying to say they should get paid less.

It's just that like in the world of ecology and environmental stuff that we're clean tech, etc., we're trying to better the planet. So, there's money out there and so we deserve to have piece of that. Well, so I think that's a super awesome and interesting perspective and it is something that I have spoken about on a

number of episodes. Um some something something at the beginning honestly that was that was surprising to me cuz it's a feeling that I have but something that was confirmed by speaking to um I was uh lucky enough to have a conversation with this woman Kate Williams. There's this nonprofit called 1% for the Planet. Yeah, yeah,

yeah. Yeah, cool. So, she she was she was all about what you're saying as far as running a nonprofit like a typical for-profit business. Like you have to um structure the business model in that way uh in in order to uh maximize the amount of impact that you could potentially have. And so

um this the there's also this this classic TED Talk that I love by this guy who talks about again, it's about nonprofit. We're talking about for-profit but just the general concept of for-profit is is broken because of this idea that you're speaking to where people make uh huge amounts of money um being CEOs and and things of huge

nonprofits and they get, you know, chastised but then you you know, you have a a video game CEO that's making 500k you know, selling like, you know, Call of Duty or something to teenagers and everyone's like that's capitalism, baby. Get yours, you know.

All right, all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, so so I I think that's that's awesome and uh probably my favorite part about uh the fact that you feel that way is that you looked at kelp and you said I'm going to make my money, baby.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm going to help out by not being a nonprofit because the thing is like if if we don't like if you don't have a circle of people that are balling then like when I fail I don't have people to rely on to get me backed up. You know what I mean? So, it's got

to be a team. It's got to be a a network of um like if I want to make a 250k a year salary, I need my COO and my CFO in my pockets in the business to make the same.

So, there's no, you know, animosity and all that, so. Well, so so so what was um, cuz I I'm I'm excited to talk about how it's clarified how it's different now, but at the beginning with this mentality, what was the opportunity in kelp that you saw?

Um, okay, so the cycle of the kelp opportunity comes and goes every 10, 15 years or so. Um, there's a boom and a bust and when the late '90s, everybody was excited about it. I think Burger King launched the kelp patty burger mix and and then it kind of died down and it came back up again and yeah,

so the thing is like seaweed's been around for one to hundreds of years um, in Asia. You know, it's been been a massive industry for China, Korea, Philippines, uh, Japan. Um, I'm missing a lot, but you know, on the Asia side of the world and Europe and North America, relatively new. More in the past 40, 50

years, actually. My professor really he was the first to bring seaweed out of Asia into Europe, into North America. They've been producing seaweed there since and um, and it's I I explain that to show that like Europe and North America is very small scale compared to what they've been doing in Asia.

Um, and it's a totally almost different industry because of the infrastructure they have in place, the markets they have, the the costs and the ways they can grow that we can't. For example, China can use genetically modified plants.

Um, whereas we can't. Like, you know, in Europe and North America we're not allowed to put that into the ocean. So, um, there's yeah, this industry on this side is very young and and furthermore, it's much more mature in Asia.

Um, and so the opportunities like, they're going to be different and every few years it gets it gets this hype, but then a lot of times the the folks that are involved in in this hype and grow up, they're not really coming at it with a long-term point of view. And so, there's

a lot of like pumping and pumping and pumping. The pump and dump account, you know what I mean? It's like building a business to flip it and not really building a business model that's going to be around in 20 years. And so, every few years when it comes up, it always bucks after like for 2 3 years.

And the latest one 2019, it really boomed and now finally people are starting to realize that hey, like I shouldn't go headfirst into this industry. I shouldn't dump all the money into this unless I have A B C D checked.

You know what I mean? They're becoming more realistic about it. But the thing is the problem is when all those promises are made by by the folks that come from like maybe those mining background or you know, from the business world. They'll see the the business opportunity, but they don't understand the ecology of the ocean and

the biology of the plants. Then those promises go unfulfilled. That's when the investors lose interest, community partners lose interest, the government loses trust. And so, then it become disappears for a couple years until the next wave hits, right? So, um yeah, when I first got involved in that, I saw the cycle of because I have

I was very fortunate to work with Louis. So, I got to see the cycle of a lot of like young and new farmers coming to him um for advice. I mean, they would pay like $10,000 to hang out with him for a week and I was in all those meetings for over a year and a half. And so, I saw

the same cycle of everyone trying to kind of do everything on their own. And um reinvent the wheel and set up a farm on their own hatcheries, grow their own seed, process their own count, develop their own products. And that's a vertically integrated business, um which is yes, it is the right way to go. And

we do need to be vertically integrated to be successful, but that needs to happen in in aggregation with a bunch of small scale producers forming a system together. If every individual person tries to do that on their own, they're just going to burn out. They're not going to have the the resources to

do it properly, and then it's just not going to make it to the end in mind. Um so, what I saw was the opportunity that I saw was not so much um the the farming or the kelp or the carbon credits or the products. It was more I saw a disconnect between the different

players, and I wanted to be kind of like the the networker in between to connect this guy this guy and this girl this girl. You know what I mean? Like fill out the supply chain and make make the system work.

So, this is the most really Well, I'll have to Okay, fascinating. So, to um okay, I'm going to make a note about that because one of one of the things that um I think to to add context to the question that that I'll I'll I'll ask after is what do we mean by kelp industry?

Damn, sure. We'll be able to find out. Kelp industry. Um yeah, the seaweed industry there's difference between kelp and seaweeds. Um seaweeds are red, brown, and greens, whereas kelp are specifically only the brown seaweeds. Um there's three different strings essentially of of seaweeds. Now, the seaweed industry involves the production or the wild

harvest of the biotic materials, and that goes into the the processing of things that people call it the biorefining of that raw material into various let's call them extracts, inputs. Um and then those ingredients and extracts get plugged into the regular market, whether it's going into food production or agricultural products or uh skin care nutraceuticals, cosmetics,

or even materials. Um historically, the seaweed industry was started in Asia, and um I mean for different purposes. So, China grew sea meat for one reason originally, and that was to feed it to their livestock. They wanted to be completely independent from the world, and they were lacking iodine.

So, that was their purpose to grow um their industry. Then from there, it progressed into food. And then after that, eventually they found uses in other markets. Uh, does that answer your question there? Is that Well, yeah. So, so when when we talk about the uh the the industry like now, I guess the the one that you're

approaching and trying to to bring together, are we talking about the people that are uh are are we talking about all the players like like the the farmers that are growing it from from seed and to the end person making like a package kelp?

Yes. Yes. In Europe and North America. That is our our main focus. So, I mean, I'm not going to try to compete or get into the Asian market if it does for hundreds of years ahead of us. Um so, what I'm trying to do is build a system that works that can be replicated in in

the projects projects in British Columbia, in Chile, in Norway, and potentially they'll be working in Namibia soon. And so, basically in those regions, everyone's more or less on the same page. They're all trying to create the seed, process the hatcheries, and reliable seed. Then there's other groups, farmers, that are trying to grow seaweed

and grow as much biomass they can effectively. Then there's other players in the in the industry that are trying to process that kelp into valuable goods. Let's call it B2B ingredients and extracts first. And then finally, there's the players that are using those B2B inputs to create finished consumer goods.

Beautiful. That was awesome. So, that that's very helpful. So, now with that with that understanding of the industry and how you're positioning yourself in it, I'm going to ask about the beginning. So, when you first had this idea of being uh the networker, you know, the system creator, these types of things, what did What did your first

attempt first you know version of this look like when you started Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, well great question. Thank you. Yeah, that is something that you pretty nice you know. Um I was a consultant. So remember I worked for Louis he's 86 years old.

He's the expert. Everyone comes to him and so he would consult them but then he wouldn't be able to follow through and go with them to their field operations and set up the farms with them and be hands-on.

Mainly because that he's a hard working guy and he doesn't have to he doesn't have that anymore. So he would send me and I would be his extended arm essentially and so I would take what they learn in that one week course with him and go with them to the farm and set up the farm. So essentially

the very first thing that I worked on was setting up seed farms. And I I thought that was important at the time because everyone was reinventing wheel and trying to design different farm systems and you know some people were doing great and some people were doing well lights etc. and it was like guys like this is

not a problem that we need to focus on because it's already been solved. Like we know how to set up farms. Let me come and show you. So that the very first year I was setting up farms and you know showing them how to run the infrastructures so that it's easier to maintain and etc. And then I found that

okay now we know how to get farms in the water and know how to grow kelp but the next bottleneck the next issue was processing. Again everybody was trying to develop their own processing solutions and build their own little dryers and containers etc.

So again I was like this technology exists. They've been doing this for ever. Let's source some of those pieces of equipment technologies bring it here and have a I called it a plug and play dryer. It was basically a unit that I fabricated and we brought all the equipment over and kind of built it to apply to BC and then we

sent it to the different locations and it was a communal processing solution so that multiple farmers in the region could access it and use it and then they wouldn't have to invest in their own dryer. Cuz, you know, to invest in dryer that sits empty for like 11 months out of the year just doesn't make sense. Um

and so, once we went into a processing world, that when we got involved in, okay, now we can process this kelp, and now we can sell it. Now we have markets for it. So, that after that, you know, this third year, we started working on developing markets, and we realized that the market

demand wasn't for raw kelp, it was for goods. Like, people didn't know what to do with kelp. Even chefs even even Japanese chefs, they knew one or two or three things to do with it, but then they were like, "What else do you want to do with it?" But if we converted that

kelp into flour, now everybody knows how to use it. If we convert that kelp into a gel extract, then now the the skin care manufacturer or chemical distributor knows how to plug that into their products. Um so, then we got involved in processing and extraction.

Um and then after 3 and 1/2 years, 4 years of, you know, each year being first year being focused on farms, second year on processing, third year on products, I realized I developed this network of mainly because some of the answers I didn't know, and I had to go figure it out. I had network in Japan, I

had uh you know, mentors in Europe, I had mentors in the States, and so basically I was able to connect everyone along the food chain, and then I kind of got caught up in this world of interviewing or not interviewing people. People reach out because they started realizing that, okay, like, this name keeps popping up,

and he knows this and that. So, they'd reach out and say, "Hey, I'm a new farmer, I have a new business of this. Do you have a moment?" And I'm like, "Yeah, sure." And then I'd ramble on, and you know, we'd talk for like 2 3 hours, and I wouldn't be paid for that.

So, I did that for maybe 6 months, 9 months of like on the side just trying to help whoever I can. People in Norway, people all over the world, you know, through Zoom. That's actually during COVID time. So, that basically allowed me to connect with more international players um a lot easier than we would have talked to before.

Uh and then I realized, hey, like, I have this network, and to really solidify some of my networkers and some of my contacts, So, like, you know what? I'll I on a flight and can go up there and meet you. I can talk to you on Zoom for a year. Let me meet you in person and learn. So, then

once that came together, um my partner actually, she's my co-founder, she taught me everything in terms of like what I don't know. And uh and basically she kind of started leaning me towards this idea of stepping back as like being boots on the ground, doing everything, and stepping back out of the business and start working in

the business, working on the business. And that's when the whole um let's become an advisory and a and consulting firm that connects people and you know, the glue in the industry. Um and that's what we focus on. year four, you'd say? Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, about that. Yeah. So, the So, the co-founder, was she there from

the beginning? She was, but not um not like officially. She was uh I was So, the first year when we were setting up these farms, um we were also doing some wild harvesting. And and basically this is for supporting Louis Pasture is business primarily relies on wild harvest. Let me talk about that, too, and how that's actually

better for the ecology and for the environment than farming. Um so, she was one of the volunteer crew, then then she kind of just stayed in touch with me and helped me with some of the the more um like marketing aspects and and then she came back to Canada and then worked with me a bit more. So,

basically she was there from the very start. And um you know, whether she knew intended to or not, she's now calling the leads and fully immersed. Well, punny, nice. Pun intended. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so you So, you just opened the door.

Um actually before I ask this, I'm just going to ask you quick clarifying questions. So, in year three, you said it was you know, generally speaking it was that there was a focus on the product, productization of kelp. Um were were there were there producers already or did you have to find people

that were willing to be producers? Or was it more so finding them and then bringing them into this fold? Yeah, so mostly um and this is like the British Columbia uh um view. Uh there was a couple of wild harvesters. So, they've been wild harvesting for you know, over 20 years in BC. So, there was access to supply.

Um now, what we wanted to do was transition from wild harvest to farm supply. And um so, I I had access to the the crop, but really the reason why we had to get into product development was because the producers that we were working with and you know, setting up their farms, setting up their processing

were getting to a point where they they couldn't sell their kelp. They you know, they had all these great ideas and plans, but then they actually weren't able to sell as much. And so, it was like, okay, well, for us to keep going up to scale or continue operations, like we need to find

markets. And that's why I kind of got involved in that way. Okay, I'll solve this problem, too. Otherwise, it's So, was it you guys developing the gel and the flour, or was it you finding people that would do it?

At first, it was us doing it ourselves. And so, then literally, we spent like $20,000 on a commercial kitchen. Actually, the same kitchen that um Beyond Meat came out of. And so, um you know, it was like I said, the Sorry?

Good juju in that kitchen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, straight up. No, that's the thing. Like, the the the environment we were getting uh was it wasn't the environment, it was just the the capacity of like not being able to do everything along the food chain. Um and I found that like, hey, even though

like I'm not a product developing specialist, but after a while of doing that, like I had some of the top chefs in BC direct lines to that. And so, when we were creating products, it was no longer me trying to create the recipe for a pickled kelp. That was our first product. I was able to access Chef Lulu,

and he was able to do the recipe formulation. But even then, it wasn't enough because it was like to operate a product developing, you know, that's a full-time focus on just one product line. Let alone try to do five, six different SKUs or in different in different um spaces, like skin care, neutral food, and pets, you know? So,

basically it was like, "Okay, like we're going to run ourselves into the ground if we keep trying to develop these products on our own." And then I I I connected into the third-party manufacturers. Then I was able to find partners that specialize, like a sauce manufacturing company that all they do, they have a

whole factory just doing sauces. Sauce. They're going to Exactly. And so, basically it was like, "Hey, like you guys have this 2,000 L leader, you know, kettle instead of me trying to go and buy myself a, you know, a little $50,000 kettle with like 250 L and all that. And then it's like, "Hey, can I

just toll process with you guys? Can I just send you my materials and can you toll process?" At first it was more like me approaching that as a for a favor type thing or someone I knew and da da da da da and they would always help out, but then it was like, "Hey, like

let's make this the design. Let's make it, you know, access different partners." Let me be approached from Corner Canada. They're one of the biggest seasoning companies in the world. They developed our seasoning product for us. And so, to us kind of make it ourselves, we had actually another Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Couple of different

partners that came together. Wow. Okay. So, another tangent, but I can't help myself. I was very No, straight up. I was very involved with um uh Oh, no. I forget his name. That's tragic. But um about I would say 18 months ago I was very involved with a guy uh who had a team who's very who's

really cool, very successful in uh his career and stuff and you know, had a moment where he was like, "I I want to save the planet" type of thing. And he was recognizing the same thing that you're describing in kelp and hemp. And he's based um outside of San Francisco, but you know, we had a lot of

conversations around this idea of you know, I think I mean hemp is more complicated because of it's tied very closely to cannabis and and marijuana and the criminalization and regulatory like craziness that goes into being able to to grow it.

But but this idea of creating an industry and creating markets and and allowing for investment to come in and allowing for consumers and producers and and growers and all these things. So, are you familiar at all with I don't know why you would be but just there seems to be a lot of similarities

between the story of hemp and and kelp. I don't know Oh yeah, absolutely. Like honestly most of our blueprint like I actually drew up a product development and I realized like huh, a lot of this extraction and trying to take out the compounds from seaweed like I can reuse the infrastructure that was

developed around hemp and yet cannabis. It's a lot of the same methodologies they use and we might not be able to get extraction to high yet. It's still an extract that's pulled out even using ionizers, using the same technology. And so yeah, there's a lot of overlap. The same exact business model really.

Woah, interesting. Okay, we'll talk about that after. We'll talk about launching next. Sure, sure. But but so you had you had you had mentioned it, you'd opened the door and I love talking about this stuff and I said it already but I'll say it again just to get it on on the record is that I spent

time outside in San Francisco, California Academy of Sciences during an internship period with this guy Peter Ruth Narine and he's a genius, he's amazing mathematician, system scientist and he introduced me to the concept of system science and I'm going to very drastically oversimplify but he presented me with this ecosystem that had population of kelp, population of

otters and a population of sea urchins. And what he was trying to teach was the interrelationships between these three populations. And you know, at least for me a lot of times you know, you look out and you see seaweeds and and you're just like okay, nice. But what he was speaking to was that if otters, for example, they

overfed on the kelp, then through a bunch of complex relationships, the the the sea urchin population would be devastated. Just if Just if the kelp is overfed on. And there's not obvious connections between them, but it's but you know, if you get deeper into it, it's clear that the kelp is a really stable pillar in

that ecosystem. And so, I wanted to bring that up to say, what is the What is the bigger picture here around kelp? Like, what Why is kelp important? Totally, totally. Okay, so my whole focus on university really came down to sustainability. Everyone throws that word around, but really sustainability is like system science. There's pillars. There's

actual like foundations where, you know, you you have to follow those rules. And if you follow the rules, then it works. And so, those rules come down to the three pillars: social, economic, and environmental. There has to be benefit to the ecology, the environment. There has to be benefit to people, because if if people aren't

benefiting from it, it's kind of hard to scale something. And there has to be If it doesn't make money, it doesn't make sense. So, the economic pillar is crucial. You can't just have something that's good for people and good for the planet, but it's losing money, it's not going to scale.

You can't have something that makes money and helps people, if it's not going to be good for the planet. And vice versa, right? So, if there's no benefit to people, why would it scale? Why would we make a bunch of money off the environment if there's no benefit to society? So, those three pillars kind of

go hand in hand. And I just found that seaweeds were a really nice bridge into that world. Like, I can talk to anybody in any industry. You could be a mechanic, a nurse. It doesn't matter what you are. I could find a way to connect kelp into your world. And how do you mean? So, it was

really more a tool, a platform for me to access the the face on worlds. So, whether it's actively going and bringing youth, I really think that the youth are the most powerful we've ever been because uh we have access to uh you can get a university degree now online in like a year or two, and that's

not in not not even not even enrolling in a course. That's just going on YouTube and Google and ChatGPT. You know what I mean? So, every book that other mentors have read, we have access to plus one more, you know, the book they wrote. And so, knowledge is if knowledge is power, we

have more knowledge than any other time ever. And so, we have to I felt like, okay, I have to say, "Whatever I do, I need to be able to tap into the youth. I need to be able to uh with them." Um then I was like, "Okay, I need to be able to access NGOs and

large organizations because they have the infrastructure to scale smaller things." Um I had to be able to work with business and and bring money into it. So, basically, to get into all these different worlds, we have to bring government into this for policy and regulations. We have to bring First Nation communities because they are the

ones that are like the coastal people. I mean, they've been on water longer than I've been alive. You get what I mean? So, when I go to a the First Nation town, like I'm not there to teach them how to be fishing. They know how to do all that. I'm just there to show them a

couple tricks out there and, you know, learn more from them than they are from me. And so, basically, seaweed was just a centerpiece. It was um it's a keystone species, too, in the environment. I mean, what you were describing there with otters and urchins, there's certain species that are are keystone species where if they're

removed from that ecosystem, everything collapses. And so, they're they're super important. They could be um some keystone species could be predators. It doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, like a grass or like a herb or an herbivore. It It depends on that system and which one is identified as a keystone. Um kelp is a keystone species.

It connects a lot of different angles and people that or worlds that would not otherwise interact. Um, so for me it was a tool it was a it was a platform to be able to access all those resources and all those worlds and then bring them into what I want to do, which

is make money, save the planet. In a nutshell, not save the planet cuz that's kind of corny. Contributing to you know, contribute to the planet. Um, and so Seameo just really loved me for that. Well, yeah. So I and and um, environmentally like what are what are the advantages of using kelp versus like like you know,

what what's an example of a use case where kelp is um, superior for some sustainable or otherwise Okay. So I can run you through a list of things. Like for example, um, kelp is very like super important to supporting whale populations.

Um, the reason for that is the biggest one of the biggest problems that whales have in the ocean is the communication is is all through vocal and there's a lot of noise from bubbles and boat traffic. So noise pollution is actually one of the biggest uh, issues for whales. And especially when they come into their

breeding grounds, they come into their resting areas cuz these are really close to coastal communities and coastal areas where there's lots of boat boat traffic. If you're ever in a room there's a lot of echoing. If you had a drape in that room, it brings it all down. So Mhm.

kelp acts as a noise pollutant. Probably. It also protects the coast from erosion from waves. You know what I mean? It also filters out it's a plant so it absorbs pollution and it absorbs the pollutants and the chemicals in the water. So it filters the water.

It also provides a primary food source as a you know, as a plant for heterotrophs and for other organisms to be able to grow. So, biodiversity is For me, biodiversity is the biggest impact it has. For a lot of time, a lot of folks were talking about carbon and its ability to capture carbon because it

grows really fast and so consumes a lot of carbon as most plants do. Um so, it's a sequestration tool. That's very falsified and very blown out of proportion. So, what I was talking about like old pump and dump, you know, overpromising. Everybody was talking about how you know, you plant a bunch of

kelp and we're going to reverse climate change because of the carbon impacts. The reality is not that. The reality is it could actually add more carbon to that ocean and so that's I understand that as an ecologist, but if I came from a mining background, I wouldn't understand that. So, I'd be pumping out a lot of false information

about it so. There's a lot of benefits that kelp can bring to the ecosystem. Um primarily, if I were to give you one thing, I'll talk about biodiversity. I'll talk about fish estuaries and you know, it providing a habitat for organisms to pass through, swim through.

Um it will attract smaller fish which feed the bigger fish which feed the feed the bigger fish, etc., etc. Um it it brings in um biodiversity in a sense of like controlling urchin populations. If you remove the urchin of the you know, the issues are that way when the urchin variants hit, it just

becomes desert, basically. So, there's nothing there because there's no vegetation, nothing for people to fish to swim through and hide, you know what I mean? So, and then those urchins are very hardy are people. Yeah. Um and those urchins are are very hardy.

So, they don't die. They just go to dormant stage. So, they lay about being there forever, but then you can't actually harvest them um to feed people with, you know, in any urchin world like they need to be uh they they need When they're in dormant stage, they're actually they're alive, but their gonads are the thing

that we actually consume. It's just it's hollow inside. So, so So, for the So, biodiversity So, for the sake of for for the sake of simplicity uh for the next question, so Well, just take biodiversity as the the biggest thing. How does the mission or the like Yeah, we we haven't talked necessarily about your goals, your

vision yet, but let's say you accomplish your goal and you develop sufficiently this industry, this network of kelp developers. How does that contribute to the sustainability of kelp and its impact on biodiversity into the future? Cool. Yeah, yeah, of course. Um okay, so in terms of like our planetary problems, you know, we've always climate change

has been this big wave, right? Um and I was talking about this in 2019, 2020. I was like, "Guys, like climate change is is cool, but carbon is actually carbon and you know, pollution is not the bigger wave is biodiversity because when we start losing biodiversity, we start losing our ability to control the

carbon cycle. Um the carbon cycle and for us to bring that carbon back down requires organisms. So, without biodiversity, we're we can't do nothing. Um whales are one of the biggest sequestering tools. Uh nobody really talks about them when it comes to carbon.

Uh they're always talking about planting trees and planting kelp, but whales are actually the biggest organ. I mean, if you think about it, the carbon that and this is oversimplified, the carbon that we're pumping into the air from our automobiles comes from oil, which is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of bones decaying, right?

Determined to that that oil. And so, which animal on the planet has the biggest bones? Right? And when they die, naturally, most whales actually sink to the ocean floor. They don't wash up on beaches. The ones that wash up on beaches are usually hit by boats and they're in some sort of like human-made problem.

Um but naturally, they usually sink to the bottom of the ocean where it sequesters even longer than if it were on land. And so in terms of, you know, our our air pollution, if we just had a normal amount of whales, not even excessive, but if we just had a normal amount of

population of whales, that would drastically fix the problem. Um again, I I mentioned that it was oversimplified. Right. So, basically, um you know, what led me into the seafood industry was climate change and and I was trying to affect climate change and two biggest contributors to climate change was uh transportation, which was

out of my wheelhouse, house, and agriculture. Specifically, the feed that goes into agriculture. So, one of our biggest contributors to that is not necessarily the methane that comes from the cattle, but it's the land that we have to cut down to grow the hay to feed these animals that are not meant to be

in North America. They're they're animals from the Mediterranean. And so, that we have to grow a bunch of grass to feed them, cutting down trees. My thing was, okay, let's grow that feed for them in the ocean. That's what led me to seaweed in the first place.

Um let's grow our crops on non, you know, on marginal land in the ocean so that basically we can save that land for the regular trees and then feed that to the the animals. As I got more and more and more involved, I realized that there's a bigger uh play. And the play is

biodiversity to support more organisms along the coast. I mean, a lot of our like if you go into the ocean, the first 10 m, that's I'm also a scuba diver, the first 10 m is where most of the life is.

10 to 20 m, but even the 10 m is the the hotspot. Um So, when we're talking about like, okay, we need to make ensure the organisms in the coastal region. I know I'm from BC, so I'm very connected to the mountains and the ocean. And we see directly how the salmon connects the the the connects

the whales to the eagles to the wolves. All the way down to the trees in the forest. Um and that system science that, you know, you mentioned with the otters and it applies to with salmon and it it applies to so much more. It applies to the trees, to the wolves, to the eagles,

to bears, and to the whales, right? So, those are organisms that are not in the same world at all, but it's brought together with salmon. Um and so, that's that's a big problem that we're facing in BC is our salmon stocks, and one of the biggest things that I could do to to

support our wild salmon stocks was to create habitat for them using kelp. Um and so, you know, if we're able to promote the natural The world is incredible. I mean, during the 2 weeks of COVID, you know, right? We saw that like That's why I'm not really that phased or worried about climate change because I'm

like, well, like if we really wanted to, we could fix everything in probably a year. You know, in in 2 weeks that we stopped flying everywhere, and trucking everywhere, we saw like you know, the rivers in Italy where it was just completely green and brown turned crystal clear. And And then we saw longfin blue sharks coming back into

those areas. And we saw all sorts of crazy thing Wildlife bounces back. Mother Nature is powerful. So, really, we don't even need to help her. We don't even need to like we don't even need to be doing tree planting in the whole Like it's just if we stop hurting her, if we stop mailing,

if we stop hunting, if we stop flying around everywhere for just a week or two, she can bounce back. So, if we were to just do that every year for 2 weeks, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. It would make a huge impact. You know what I mean? And so, that's why I'm like we don't we don't need to get in her

way, we just need to get out of the way. And everything Yeah. So, before before I get to my last question for you before my two favorite questions, and it is you know, we talk a lot about the benefits of kelp and how awesome this is and and great and stuff. What are What's

the biggest misconception about kelp and or you know, what what are some arguments against it? Totally. I appreciate that. I've been talking about this for a long time. Carbon Carbon sequestration Kelp is a powerful carbon capturing tool because it grows faster than trees do, of course.

But it doesn't sequester them as long as trees do. Trees live for 40-50 years. Kelp lives for one. And then it decays and releases that carbon back out. The world is now finally like the scientists are getting loud enough where they're finally starting to understand that and see that.

The thing is you can't just blindly farm kelp and and grow it wild in the ocean um and think that there's no negative consequences. I can simply explain that in in a couple sentences. You look at a region whatever region, let's say BC, let's say Delta, it doesn't matter. Historically, we have to keep the numbers simple.

Let's say we were able to grow I'm just these numbers don't have any meaning. Historically, wild kelp grew about let's say 1,000 tons. And today, we have 100 tons growing. That means that we can grow 10 times more kelp to get to that ecosystem equilibrium, you know, happy number. We get back to 1,000 tons. But

what happens if we artificially grow kelp in man-made infrastructure in the open ocean? Seaweed is a benthic organism. It only grows in the coastal regions where it's deep enough, 10, 20, 30 m. If you start adding infrastructure, man-made infrastructure in the open ocean, so now it can grow in the waters that are 100 m

deep to 100 m deep, you're not you're not just um helping by adding surface area, that's the biggest limiting factor in the ocean. You're not growing more kelp than that ecosystem is naturally supposed to sustain. So, if historically you can sustain 1,000, now you're growing 10,000 tons, you're going to actually mess up the

chemistry in that water because now you have much more kelp breaking off and feeding the heterotrophs. Those heterotrophs are going to overpopulate and they release more carbon. So, now you're actually adding more carbon to that area than that ecosystem's chemistry can naturally sustain.

Heterotrophs for like plankton? Exactly. Things like that. Yes. And so So, basically, once you have more of those then you have more of fish, more of the organisms, and then they create more carbon dioxide, and then actually that's a negative impact. And the other big misconception is that farmed kelp has the same ecosystem services as wild

kelp. And that's not true because farmed kelp grows on, again, ropes off the bottom floor, ocean floor. And as soon as that crop is ready to harvest, we're ripping the whole thing out. So, as soon as it becomes a forest for the fish and organisms to use and enjoy, we're harvesting it out. Whereas with

wild harvesting, and usually, you know, we always say don't over-harvest, don't overfish, wild harvesting versus farming is harvesting is not good. In this case, it's it is because when there's a wild harvest bed that we're trimming from, we go by small boats at the surface of the water, depending on the tide, and

we're trimming from that. So, we're actually leaving most of the plant underneath intact. So, it stays a forest for the ecosystem, and we're actually harvesting small amounts, which is what the market demand is for. The market demand calls for small batch market supply. It doesn't call for millions and tons of kelp just

one month out of the year. And so, when we're able to trim from that wild bed consistently for a couple months as opposed to just harvesting for one month, that bed is in the water for a lot longer. So, what we've actually been leaning towards in the past year or two is this idea of ranching it as opposed

to farming it. We ranch it. Ranching means that you let your animal roam into the wild and come back. Like And so, Yeah. It's all like cow for cattle, ranching cattle. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, basically, instead of You said ranch, and then my intrusive thought was like like their dressing, and I was curious if you guys had made

like a kelp dressing. I love your side. Yes, we have actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was me in my shop. No doubt. Totally. We make made seaweed whiskey, like anything man, like Seaweed whiskey? Yeah, I know. And not just flavored with seaweed, but actually like distilled from the kelp.

Um so, it was actually like the sugars that were extracted from it. Yeah. And honestly, aside all about that, like I never really I always thought people that were like, oh, alcohol this and that has ups and downs flavors are like, all right, alcohol's alcohol.

But then I had it and I was like, dang. Like I had She felt the ups and I felt the wave. Like I actually felt like I was on a wave. The ocean wave that it meant like it went up and down and then the smell of the ocean is crazy. So, yeah, go out for our seaweed whiskey. I

was like, That is hilarious. Okay, so you're saying like Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, so ranching. So, basically, this idea of wild ranching, it takes off all the boxes because the business model makes more sense because it you you have less costs of infrastructure um and, you know, maintaining the kelp. You're putting your nature to work. Um it meets the

market demand better because it's rapid dash small small supply small batch rapid supply, you know, available nine months out of the year. Um it also helps to solve for economics more because now instead of having this massive farm that requires big boats to come and high ups and cranes and all that to to deal with the

farm, you're able to harvest with small boats. Almost every fisherman or every coastal person has a small herring boat or skiff. So, they can go out there and they can get involved instead of requiring some city company to come in and, you know, one company making all the money as opposed to the small people

that are doing the work. Um it has much more benefits to the environment because now you're replenishing wild stocks in a natural way. You're not replenishing wild stocks with man-made infrastructure and ropes. You grow natural substrates and and you're only growing to what that ecosystem can sustain because once you run out of, you know, surface area and

and coastal floor, then you can't grow more kelp. And so, you can't overdo it and go past that thousand ton mark, right? Um and also I mean, it just it the whole cycle is much more um, you know, it's more natural. And so, you're able to contribute to the ecosystem and harvest back from it and and, you know,

give a little, take a little, work with mother nature. There's no better farmer than mother nature. And so, that's kind of what we've been 40 years for this reason. So, this is the idea of restoring the So, real So, real quick, uh, as we're into here cuz I know we're we're we're close, but I would

I mean, I would keep talking about this for so long. I mean, so much knowledge, so much enthusiasm. I love Thanks. You as well. So, I guess next time we're going to have to do this episode on one of those small boats as you guys are are harvesting, you know.

Yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah, quickly, what is the biggest hurdle that you're facing right now? Um, and how is it also an opportunity? Yeah, thank you. Um, let's see. The biggest hurdle is honestly, it's that markets pull. Um, yeah, I would say it's the market pull because we at first it was can we grow

the kelp? Okay, yes, that it was to be reliably grow healthy seed. Um, that was also a big critical bottleneck. Um, we solved that issue with the the scientists in the industry. Um, then it was can we process the kelp? And, you know, you have this 24-hour trap like kelp rots really fast. So, you have to

process it almost immediately. Within 24 hours it's gone. Um, so, we solved that. And then we were able to Okay, well, there's no demand for this raw ingredient. We need to create products. We're able to solve that. And now, the biggest challenge, I mean, with our technology it helps that. Um, it's basically a seed

solution. It's an automated seeding solution. We're finding that farmers and NGOs cuz the solution is both for restoration work as well as farming, the biggest challenge they have is scaling their operation because they don't have markets in demand for their kelp. Um and so instead of focusing on exporting it all to Asia,

um we want to focus on creating markets locally so that a it's even it's a it's an input it's a raw material that we're keeping here and using within our North American circle, European circle, um and and for sure the exporting as well, but um to create that demand locally, but also it's it allows the you

know, the more you process locally and the more you develop locally, the more the money stays local. And so basically I guess the biggest challenge is creating that demand and that market pull for the the kelp products. And I guess that's an opportunity because I mean that's that's a whole space of business that, you know, people get

involved in and and honestly the youth are kind of the most powerful um sales people nowadays, you know, cuz the the the the audience the uh the consumer is becoming smarter and they're doing more research and when they do that research, they really want to find the source and find the people behind it and more often than not

our youth are more accessible than the old school way of doing business, right? The influencer model, the uh affiliate programs, the just emailing, chat, you know, that kind of stuff and and communicating back and forth and so I think the youth have the the biggest opportunity here to get involved in that space because they don't need to be

in the ocean, they don't need to be in the processing plant, they just need to be able to make a sale, tell the story and um paint the story. And so using all the different tools that we have access to um virtually to get, you know, the message across.

So it's it's uh it's it's uh clear to me that there's a couple answers uh for this question, but I'm curious with all this what inspires you. Oh, what inspires me? Um Um then like this conversations like this. To be honest, today was a rough day. I was uh dealing with some of the

more administrative duties and I hit a wall and like like I said my partner she's always she's always got my back and she bought me out of it and I wasn't as inspired as I could have been so I was like tell her that I was having conversations I was like I I I need to

but she's like you can always pull it out of your there honestly the first 13 seconds I spoke with you I hyped me back up so you know just just being able to work with good people um to do what I want to do and and um yeah just just I know that what we're

doing is is important and um it has a it has an impact upon people and the environment. I think that's the that's what lets me sleep at night at least. It's all worth it. Beautiful. Reggie this has been awesome.

This has been so cool. I'm excited for the next one. If anyone else was inspired by the conversation what's the best way to get in touch or follow along with your story? Uh seawednetwork.com just hop over there you'll find a way to get access to me or Louisa.

Um I always get back to to our fans and our supporters so you just go to seawednetwork.com you'll find my contact info you can shoot us an email call and anytime you want to talk about seaweeds kelp environmental academia youth I'm down for it.

You guys you guys are in you guys are in whiskey and salad dressing. Have you made it to clothes yet? You know what if I get you if I get bored on that topic okay so our main focus right now is cosmetics and nutraceuticals and agricultural products. There's the specific market reasons for that. Some

of the food products are always going on in the background. There's a bunch of IP developed that we prototypes that we have on the shelf that are not quite ready to be you know launched and when it comes to textiles and clothes we're actually working on a seaweed leather that's um it it looks and feels

a lot like like alligator skin. So, it's like a vegan alligator skin made out of kelp. And a good friend of mine, McKay, she's in with the um she's in the whole clothing industry and and fashion. And so, we're working with her on designing something really cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yes.

Thank you so much, man. We'll talk to you soon. I appreciate you, Blake. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on.