The “Deep Green Biotech Hub 2023 White Paper” highlights the Australian algae industry’s potential across food, nutraceuticals, biofuels, and biomaterials. It identifies challenges like regulatory inconsistencies and funding gaps, while emphasizing collaboration, innovation, and a roadmap for sustainable growth aligned with Australia’s marine strengths.
Publisher: University of Technology Sydney
The purpose of this paper is to profile the consumers who are likely to eat seaweed products in Australia. The paper identifies education, familiarity, food neophobia (FNeo), symbolic value of food consumption, health consciousness, as well as snacking behaviour as significant predictors of likelihood to eat seaweed products. Consumers with a university degree (i.e. undergraduates and postgraduates) are four times more likely to eat seaweed products, and those familiar with seaweed products have a 7.6 higher likelihood to eat seaweed products. FNeo makes the largest contribution to the consumer’s likelihood to eat seaweed.
Publisher: British Food Journal
Author: Dawn Birch, Kare Skallerud and Nicholas A Paul
Year: 2019
Seaweed has been traditionally consumed in Asian and Pacific cultures, yet aside from sushi, is still not commonly eaten in Western societies. Edible seaweeds offer distinct nutritional benefits to terrestrial crops, particularly with respect to mineral and fibre content. Understanding the motivations that drive young Australians to eat seaweed is necessary for food product development and consumer marketing strategies, as well as informing future sustainable production through seaweed aquaculture and wild-harvest practices.
Publisher: Foods Journal
Author: Mikaela Young, Nicholas Paul, Dawn Birch, Libby Swanepoel
Year: 2022
This paper provides a comprehensive understanding of US consumers’ preferences and attitudes toward seaweed and value‐ added seaweed products. Specifically, the study focuses on two distinct consumer groups: those who consume seaweed and those who do not. It includes separate analyses for each group to compare their attitudes and examine the characteristics and factors affecting their attitudes. This paper summarizes the different characteristics of seaweed consumers and nonconsumers.
Publisher: Agribusiness Journal
Author: Qiujie Zheng, Christopher V. Davis, Anne Langston Neil, Raymond Bernier and Randy Labbe
Year: 2022
Australia’s seaweed industry shows significant potential for growth, driven by its rich biodiversity, emerging commercial applications, and focus on sustainability. Seaweed products span food, biofertilizers, cosmetics, and wastewater treatment. Barriers include regulatory challenges, market readiness, and the need for innovation in cultivation and processing.
Publisher: Switzerland Springer Nature
Author: Charu Deepika, Juliane Wolf, Navid Moheimani, Ben Hankamer, Brian von Herzen, Ambati Ranga Rao
Year: 2022
Seaweed has great potential as a natural, healthy, and sustainable food. Seaweed as food is novel in Western countries; thus, few studies have focused on the factors influencing consumers’ behavioural tendencies towards seaweed food products. This study aimed to fill the gap by investigating the antecedents for consumers’ attitudes towards as well as their consumption of seaweed food products in a representative sample of Norwegian consumers
Publisher: Food Research International Journal
Author: Florent Govaerts and Svein Ottar Olsen
Year: 2023
Macro-algae is an umbrella term for seaweed, which is an important ingredient in many novel food products in New Zealand and other Australasian countries. While attitudes, consumption motivation, knowledge, and socio-demographic consumer profiles have been investigated in specific countries in the region, consumer behavior such as willingness to eat and factors driving this behavior have not yet been explored. Therefore, the present study fills this research gap in a New Zealand context and explores predictors of New Zealand consumers’ willingness to eat macro-algae and their perceived trust towards the countries of origin of these products. The symbolic value of food, health importance, food safety concerns, and food fussiness were the factors under investigation.
Publisher: Foods Journal
Author: Meike Rombach and David L Dean
Year: 2024
The report highlights key insights into marketing seaweed products in the U.S., focusing on consumer education, market positioning, sustainability messaging, and addressing barriers like taste and awareness to drive demand for seaweed as a sustainable food source.
Publisher: Seagreen Insights
Author: Mike Blakely and Elaine Blakely
Year: 2024