Scottish Association for Marine Science: Unlocking red seaweed for food flavor, color & hybrid proteins
13 Apr 2026 | Scottish Association of Marine Science
Scientists at the Scottish Association for Marine Science have developed a tank-based method to grow the valuable red seaweed Palmaria palmata (dulse). Dr. Puja Kumari explains how scalable cultivation creates opportunities to use the seaweed as a flavor enhancer, hybrid protein source, and functional ingredient offering bioactive peptides and natural colorants. She highlights how the method can support traceable, year-round sustainable seaweed supply for food manufacturers.
Hi, this is Insha Noreen, a journalist at Food Ingredients First.
Scientists at the Scottish Association for Marine Science have developed a plant-based method for growing the highly valued red seaweed Palmeria Parmata, which is consumed as a high-end food product but is hard to grow.
Project lead Dr.
Puoja Kumari is joining us today to tell us what the findings mean for the food industry.
Welcome, Puja.
So my first question is, what are the key findings of this research in terms of improving survival and year-round cultivation of red seaweed, and what do they matter for the food industry?
So Palmeria parmata, as commonly known as duls, is an edible seaweed which has been used as food historically.
And one of the major botaniques for cultivating Palmydia palmatta has been it's a High mortality at the early hatchery stage.
So I think one of the major takeaways from the project that we did for palm area cultivation.
Can be that we were able to, we were able to tackle this mortality from say 70 and 80% that's reported in the literature to 10%, which is a major breakthrough for us, and we managed to do this by maintaining low doses of the nutrients that we add in the culture medium, because initially, see, the algal spores are too small, 10 microns in size, and if we load a lot of nutrients in them.
Then, it also like, invites other things like bacteria and other organisms to grow, and they compete for the same nutrients.
So by managing low nutrient doses helped us in reducing the mortality.
And another takeaway could be for especially for the food industry is also like tank waste cultivation system.
We did established it and upscaled it from say 1 L in a laboratory.
To 10 L carboys to 65 L and then to 300 L.
Secondly, you have more control over the , growth of the biomass of Palmyra palmata in your tanks.
You can control culture conditions like light temperature, nutrient doses, aeration, everything.
Then you have less variation of biochemical parameters across batches, and you also don't have to think about the environmental changes and other things because you are controlling everything, so it's an advantage.
So if you want to develop, for example, any palm area-based food product, water industry, or any company would need a consistent, good quality biomass material which has consistent biochemical properties, not much varying between batches to batches and from different places as , so you can have a very good, healthy.
Growing palm area with less infection and maybe less variations, less heavy metals and microbial loads as.
So it's a benefit for the food industry to, you know, like invest or focus on tank-based cultivated seaweed biomass.
What specific food industry applications do you see which can emerge from the scalable production of the red seaweed?
Yes, I think, as I mentioned earlier as that paleria adults has been used in food for a long time.
So I, I see few, not few, like it could be many applications.
First, directly as a food, as a dried powder as , you can add it as spices or salad because they contain very high contain con amount of protein.
Vitamins, also essential minerals, essential amino acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids, which is much more, a bit, higher than the daily requirements, but, not too high that you cannot eat them.
Second, if you take in a small amount, you can always manage, those, dietary, requirements as.
Second is the flavor.
Like most of the CB7 also palmeria are known for their unami flavor, so.
Flavor industry is the second thing where I think it can grow much more better than alternative proteins because there's a lot of work done in alternative protein with the seaweeds as and they have a bit high content, say a 20, 25%, they can go in red seaweeds, so that's the another.
Option as , and one thing that we always think about like hybrid alternative proteins, if you can combine them with plant-based proteins as and create something new and how their texture and digestibility will.
Affect them.
And another option could be functional protein because as I mentioned that they're rich in all the essential amino seeds and vitamins and minerals.
So that can be another point as , like use nutraceuticals or any other health benefits as , so yeah.
Oh great.
And what do you think are the main challenges that can be maybe a hurdle for food manufacturers before it can be scaled up?
Yeah, I think at this stage, it, it, it can be true for any other seaweed as as, for palm area.
Specifically for palm area, I would say if you say technical challenges, and it is mostly understanding for us its life cycle because we are growing, if we are growing only and only males, then it needs a validation that it is as good and comparable as a wild harvest which we are doing.
So I think that would be.
Second, would be like, whether you are sourcing your material from tank-baste system or wild harvest wherever you will need to adhere to consistency in biochemical composition and their properties.
Third would be scaling.
The production, to commercial volumes as.
What we demonstrated was maximum we went to a small research facility, 200 L tanks, but if you think about for food and they have a big requirement.
Then you need to upscale to big graceful ponds, say 10 to 50 cubic meters or even much more bigger.
Then with scalability comes the challenges.
All your calculations may go wrong.
What was good at 3 tanks as.
So then again, you need to optimize everything, all the culture conditions.
And then, it could be like, , downstream processing as and post-harvest because as I see, if I compare with the plants, they have developed, researched 50-60 years of research in developing post-harvest fac facilities or methods for perishable foods or different kind of fruits, vegetables, but we don't have something like that for seaweeds yet.
And then if you say economically wise, if you are doing land was cultivation, it is still a bit costly.
So do a complete life cycle assessment, cost-benefit analysis, and pinpoint or find like, OK, this is the place where you can manage some of the costs of bring them down and then so that you can produce a biomass which is affordable to all.
And by growing them on land-based cultivation, you always have less heavy metals, very less iodine content.
It is very healthy.
Good for human health as , so we should be accepting that and also the labels like the companies if they are developing any seaweed-based food products, they should mention them in the labels like it is from where if it is possible and if it allows the regulatory concerns allows them, then it would be very easy to build trust among consumers as , and they know exactly what they are eating.
And finally, what are the next steps to scale this land-based cultivation system from pilot research to commercial production?
We are keen to test and validate our method on a commercial setting, so maybe that's the second stage we are looking for right at the moment.
And then while we do it like then tackling all the upscaling challenges and second, after that we would also work and try to understand the LCA for the entire method starting from spores to different stages of scaling and to the bigger one and try to make it.
Like bring down the cost of cultivation if you're doing the land-based cultivation.
So we'll like to try a lot of things in the next upscaling stage and characterizing our biomass for food, also for, say, pigments or food colorants or say bioactive peptides, alternative proteins, so that's what we are looking for at this stage.
OK, that's all really exciting.
So, thank you Puja, for your time.
