Bill Collins knows the s-word is one that comes up a lot when people think about eating kelp. “Everybody considers seaweed to be the smelly, slimy thing you see on a beach,” he says. “Well, if you took a fresh bag of carrots and threw them out on a beach and let them sit for two weeks, they'd be slimy and smelling, too.” 

As chairman and co-founder of Sidney, B.C.’s Cascadia Seaweed, Collins has access to the best, freshest cultivation—and he swears it tastes different than what people expect.

“It's crunchy, it's not salty,” he describes.
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“If you rinsed it in freshwater, you'd find that it doesn't taste like the sea. It’s maybe a little minerally, but not in an offensive way.” Think of the crispest, newest-picked lettuce, but with more personality: “It provides the crunch, but there’s just more body.” Collins, along with Mike Williamson and Tony Ethier, founded Cascadia in 2019. A former marine geologist who shifted to business, Collins was exploring possible investments for the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance when he came across one that seemed too good to be true. Harvesting seaweed would create jobs, generate revenue, and provide a new food source. And unlike almost any other industry, it isn’t just carbon-neutral: seaweed aquaculture is actually climate-positive.

Read the full article from Sweet Potato Magazine here.