Kelpful co-founder and CEO Melissa Hanson caught “seaweed fever” when she listened to a Bioneers podcast about kelp farming a few years ago.
A background in sustainable agriculture, working in the food industry, and an ever-present interest in the politics of food gave her the tools to learn everything she possibly could about aquaculture and seaweed farming.
Hanson’s rewards? An understanding that the California coast holds a cornucopia of seaweed, and her company Kelpful.
“The goal has always been to do aquaculture as a way to grow sustainable food in a regenerative way. That wasn’t available to us, so we started sustainably wild harvesting in order to get familiar with the native species, develop products, and test out the market. We wanted to see if people were interested at all in buying seaweed, eating seaweed, and using seaweed more in their daily lives,” Hanson said.
Kelpful became a hit quickly after Hanson and co-founder and Sales Manager Jules Marsh launched the company in 2019. Their stand welcomes seaweed lovers every Thursday at the downtown San Luis Obispo Farmers’ Market.
Customers can choose from three types of furikake seasonings. Sea Sprinkles is the original mix made with wild nori and kelp, sesame seeds, sea salt, and toasted sesame oil. Its fiery counterpart—Spicy Sea Sprinkles—comes with chili flakes. They both can add a nutty umami kick to avocados, popcorn, eggs, noodles, and even mac and cheese. Kelpful’s latest sprinkles addition is Everything but the Wildfire—an edible jab at California’s climate crisis that’s packed with hemp hearts, poppy seeds, citrus olive oil, roasted garlic, and of course, seaweed, among other things.
But these gluten-free and vegan sprinkles aren’t Kelpful’s only offerings. Their seaweed offerings include re-sealable bags of nori and kombu, and the Immunity Broth Mix.
“A lot of people didn’t know that the seaweed that grows here is even edible. They had no idea that this vast, incredible resource is right here,” Hanson said. “Seaweed has so many benefits. I know it’s a cliché, but it really is a superfood. It’s known for having a high concentration of trace minerals like iodine, magnesium, iron, and calcium. It’s high in omega-3s and 6s. In general, seaweed are much more nutrient-dense than land-based vegetables.”
An alga, seaweed becomes a sponge for minerals as it thrashes around in the ocean. Hanson and her team at Kelpful would like to farm their own to maximize sustainability, but Californian regulations continue to ensure that the dream is still distant. Hanson has been quick to adapt.
“We are working with a coalition of other local organizations on getting access to the old abalone farm in Cayucos to do land-based tank culture,” she said.
Tank or tumble culture is a type of controlled farming where seawater is pumped into a series of tanks. In this case, seaweed would be grown there, and the seawater would flow back out to the ocean.
“It still has a lot of the same ecosystem services and environmental benefits for the ocean because the water that flows out of the system is cleaner and has a higher pH,” Hanson said. “One of the benefits of growing seaweed is it counteracts ocean acidification by raising the pH and making it less acidic. That water can be used to cultivate shellfish, which is another very sustainable source of food and protein that can be regeneratively cultivated through aquaculture, including land-based aquaculture.”
For now, Hanson and Marsh harvest seaweed themselves every two weeks from the Cayucos coast. Donning wetsuits and backpacks, they’ll sometimes head out at dawn after making sure the tides and the weather line up. Once they find a spot with the right water quality, the duo uses scissors to cut abundant species like giant kelp, nori, and sea lettuce at the holdfasts that anchor the algae.
“The holdfasts are like the roots of an algae plant and that allows it to regrow. We cut it instead of pulling it. It grows incredibly fast, sometimes within a few days,” Hanson explained. “We harvest seasonally, and are very careful not to disturb other species living in the area. We only harvest a small amount compared to the total biomass within any given area. Our goal is to not look like we were there at all when we’re done harvesting.”
Two to three hours of work produces roughly 200 pounds of cut seaweed. But harvesting is the easy part, according to Hanson. The real challenge lies in washing.
“We’ll take it back to our washing and drying station, which is in Kandarian Organic Farms in Los Osos. We built a custom-developed seaweed washer. Then, we put it in our solar dehydrator, which is basically a greenhouse with a solar fan. So we don’t use fossil fuels in the drying process, just the power of the sun,” she said.
Kelpful strives to be synonymous with sustainability. It’s a mission that Hanson can trace back to her college days when she fixed damaged books at the library.
“A book came in called The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved by Sandor Ellix Katz. He’s really known for his books on fermentation. It talks about a lot of underground food movements,” she said. “It really opened my eyes to how the way that we eat, and the way that we source our food, has such a massive impact on our society as well as our personal health. If we can shift our food system, it’s like a domino effect—so many other things will follow suit.”
She also credits Kelpful’s success to her team’s passion to put in the elbow grease. While many people want to farm kelp, Hanson said that not everyone is willing to experiment, fail, and try again. Cutting through the politics of aquaculture in California takes persistence, and wild harvesting requires consistent labor.
Find Kelpful products at spots like Bread Bike, Lincoln Market Deli, and Morro Bay’s Avocado Shack, in addition to local farmers’ markets.
“I just love being in the intertidal zone and being intimate with that ecosystem is really special,” Hanson said. “It feels special to have the privilege of going into the amazingly beautiful diverse ecosystem and gather food and medicine to share with the community and the world.” Δ
Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal is stocking up on Spicy Sea Sprinkles. Reach her at brajagopal@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jul 14-24, 2022.