Published on 10 March 2022
Seaweed down south
An O’Sullivan Beach business is aiming to be part of the first wave of South Australia’s commercial seaweed industry.
Moonrise Seaweed Co., a 2020 Onkaparinga ON Business Grant recipient, is the brainchild of husband and wife team Chloe and Brad Darkson. After discovering how seaweed aquaculture offers a nature-based solution for climate change mitigation, Chloe and Brad were sold on the idea of setting up their own business to regeneratively farm native seaweed species.
Commercially grown seaweed can be used in industries such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food production as well as animal and stock feed.
Chloe is a marine biologist and has worked on various marine research projects. Brad is a proud First Nations man who is passionate about continuing and building upon the 65,000 + years history of Indigenous sustainable use of seaweed.
After enrolling in the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme program in 2019 they secured a Miscellaneous Research Fisheries Permit which allowed them to forage storm-cast Golden Kelp.
Later that year Moonrise Seaweed Co. partnered with the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI). The state government, having identified seaweed as the next big marine industry for South Australia, had provided SARDI with an injection of $1.5 million to attract new players and grow the state’s commercial seaweed opportunities.
This partnership has brought Chloe and Brad’s dream to be one of the first commercial seaweed farming operations in South Australia much closer. Along with invaluable hands-on training and cultivation experience, SARDI has now granted Moonrise Seaweed Co. access to pumped seawater which will allow Chloe and Brad to trial different species of seaweed in a land-based flow through tank.
Their ultimate goal is to expand their pilot land-based cultivation to a larger site and eventually to be granted a licence to farm seaweed in the South Australian ocean.
For more information on how to unlock new business opportunities, head to the ON Business Partner Program’s ON Business Grants page.