FunSea – Functional processing of cultivated seaweeds for novel food products

It was two exciting days with updates and new results from each project partner. There was also time for seaweed tastings from Fraunhofer and Bettafish, and a tour of Fraunhofer's food-grade laboratories. A good starting point for making seaweed food with better taste, higher nutritional content, a

nd preferred texture! A great deal of time was spent on planning the upcoming harvest season of Alaria esculenta, and how to acid preserve and ferment this biomass.

The FunSea-treated seaweed will also be tested in Bettafish’ commercial food products, including tuna and salmon substitutes. Exciting activities are planned on Ulva prolifera and Fucus vesiculosus in 2025. Stay tuned for more updates!

Some highlights from the consortium

Cultivation

• New Alaria esculenta seedlings are deployed at sea and are ready to harvest from late April
• A hatchery for Ulva prolifera has been established to provide biomass grown in Baltic seawater (8 PSU) for future experiments.

Processing

• Initial smoking and drying trials have been done on Ulva prolifera and Fucus vesiculosus.
• Acid preservation and blanching studies have been conducted on Alaria esculenta.
• Promising results regarding higher protein content and lower cadmium content in the seaweed biomass will soon be published.
• Methods for bleaching Alaria esculenta in gentle and food-friendly ways have been tested for use in new seaweed products.
• Fermentation with lactic acid bacteria has been tested on Ulva sp.
• Sensory tests reveal that people prefer the taste of fermented seaweed.
• Data collection for LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) analyses has begun.

Food products 

• Initial tests with acid preserved seaweed in food products (guacamole, chocolate and nut bars, pesto) have been conducted.
• Sensory tests on acid preserved seaweed have been conducted, and plans are in place to test the inclusion of FunSea-seaweed in commercial food products.