EPISODE 3: The Wonders of Kelp with Briana Warner
Is kelp the new kale? To find out more about the superfood sea vegetable, I headed up to Maine to interview Atlantic Sea Farms CEO Briana Warner.
Atlantic Sea Farms partners with the state’s fisherman to cultivate kelp, and then processes it into things like smoothie cubes and seaweed salad to distribute to restaurants, markets and home kitchens.
Bri has quite the resume. Before taking the leadership role at Atlantic Sea Farms in 2018, she served several tours in the U.S. Foreign Service; opened and sold a wholesale bakery in Portland; and worked as economic development director of a non-profit focused on sustaining island communities in Maine and elsewhere.
In this episode, she discusses how her background led her to seaweed, explains why we should be eating more locally harvested kelp, and delves into the fascinating details of how it’s grown.
SHOW NOTES
Follow Briana Warner and Atlantic Sea Farms on: Facebook/ Instagram
Atlantic Sea Farms’ online store
1:51 “Seaweed is being eaten everywhere … what isn’t being eaten is American seaweed. Ninety-eight percent of the seaweed we that we eat in the United States is actually coming from Asia, and it’s all imported, dried.”
4:57 “One of my favorite statistics about kelp is it’s the most calcium-dense food on the planet. One ounce of kelp has more calcium in it than any other food you can buy.”
8:42 “We’re super excited about the prospect of the prospects of Americans getting fresh kelp into their diets.”
9:34 “Our company was the first commercial seaweed farm in the U.S.”
10:30 “The fact that there is more and more of a focus on plant-based diets means that there’s more room for kelp.”
10:51 “It also is good for the environment. Kelp actually takes carbon and nitrogen out of the water and reverses some of the effects of climate change.”
11:09 Wild harvested kelp by Maine Sea Coast Vegetables.
13:00 “It’s this fantastic complementary business that fisherman can do. They have large boats. They have a lot of gear. And they know the water better than anybody.”
22:46 “I’m a development economist by trade. There are opportunities to prevent collapse, not just fix it after it’s happened”
27:38 “We talk about aquaculture, or kelp, as something new, but really what we’re trying to do is trying to keep Maine how it is, which is getting people to have an opportunity to continue working on the water if they want.”
29:25 "Kelp will never replace lobster but it can certainly help absorb some of the volatility of the industry.”
30:32 Book recommendations:
Superfood Seagreens by Barton Seaver
Ocean Greens by Lisette Kreischer and Marcel Schuttelaar
32:10 Some of the restaurants serving Atlantic Sea Farms kelp:
Legal Sea Foods
B. Good
Daily Harvest
The Little Beet
Piccolo
Flatbread Company
Mami, Portland