December 2025

A Seaweed tour de Brittany

Scott Lindell & Shep Erhart Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution / Maine Coast Sea Vegetables

The northwest corner of France, Brittany, is a center of seaweed biodiversity that has served research and commercial interests for over a century. This presentation from Scott Lindell & Shep Erhart summarizes a tour of the modern seaweed interests in Brittany through the lens of wild and farmed seaweed uses. The uses seen ranged from new food products, from at least 5 different species, to decades-old agriculture amendment applications, for rearing land crops and animals. In addition to business research, we’ll compare the challenges and opportunity of sourcing wild seaweeds and farming seaweeds in France vs. Maine and New England.