Seaweed: Fleeting trend or realistic future food?

Eating seaweed is a little alien to most people; and a large number of those who have experienced it have not yet graduated further than the nori sheets used to wrap sushi. Yet seaweed or marine algae – to give them their correct name – are bang on trend. There have been more than 29,000 micro algae and seaweed-based products launched into the consumer marketplace since 2010, half of which were launched in the past year. And it’s not just the specialist retailers that are cashing in; the major grocery chains are now stocking seaweed lines too. In the United Kingdom, for example, Marks & Spencer (M&S) rolled out seaweed-based products from three different brands nationwide in April. A month later, Tesco also launched a new range. Even celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has been publicly praising seaweed as a food – further stoking consumer interest.