Tane Bradley at his Paeroa Agrisea lunchroom. Photo / Alison Smith
The hidden, healing properties of seaweed cellulose is the latest innovation for Paeroa company Agrisea that's drawn interest from a worldwide supplier of pharmaceuticals.
Agrisea partnered in a three-year Smart Ideas research project with Scion, commercially licensing a nanocellulose hydrogel from seaweed.
Hydrogels are used in burn wound dressings, biomedical engineering applications, drug delivery, cosmetics, and in agriculture supporting plant health.
The gels can absorb vast amounts of water - up to 1000 times their own weight - to form a jelly-like substance, the research found.
Agrisea GM Tane Bradley says it's exciting that the product is being manufactured from what was a waste product after Agrisea's other products were made, and one that would have gone to landfill.
A "random luck" seating arrangement at a Matariki conference in Rotorua led Tane and wife Clare Bradley to Dr Marie Joo Le Guen and Dr Stefan Hill of Scion: "and we got talking", says Dr Hill.
"They've been amazingly supportive of Scion, they're really forward thinking. They were open to discussing high-value high-tech uses of their waste stream," he says.
Adds Tane: "We decided, let's give it a nudge and sent them some seaweed, and two years into our three-year Smart Ideas funding they came back and said 'we cracked the code'."
Clare heads up the science, research and development at the company and her awards are displayed among the company's varied products.
She was named NZI Rural Women New Zealand Business Awards Supreme winner in 2019.
Both partners say they are hugely excited to see this project move to commercialisation so soon.
"What started as a far-flung idea has quickly become a commercial reality," says Clare. "This sort of work ties in with our vision to create a high-value, long-term sustainable seaweed industry for New Zealand," she says.
The nanocellulose is from two species of seaweed, Undaria pinnatifida and the native kelp Ecklonia radiata.
"We've replicated some trials on mixing collagen and hydrogel for wound healing. And we're looking at how else we can refine the nanocellulose to act as a filtration device in medical care, for use in operating theatres," says Tane.
"We're blessed here because we get the warm currents and the cold currents coming up. You talk to the experts and there's still so much that's unknown about the value and the benefits that we've got within our marine systems."
The company is also testing the nanocellulose as a seedling gel, with trials finding a 36 per cent increase in survivability of seeds.
"It's like, wow, from this little idea to all this real cool stuff that we had no idea, even after our brewing, could still make byproducts," he says.
Dr Hill says the core purpose of the research was originally to generate nanocellulose from seaweed for high-tech materials in items like mobile phones and cars, to keep them cool.
"The nanocellulose from seaweed leant itself to thermal applications. The idea came about when Samsung and Apple phones were catching fire. We had these new devices with high energy density batteries and the materials surrounding them weren't up to the task of containing the heat."
Dr Hill says in line with Agrisea's values, Scion applied "green chemistry rules" to the extraction of nanocellulose.
"Our seaweeds aren't magic compared to other seaweeds around the planet but one of the things that supports what we're doing with Clare and Tane is around the values. We're using chemicals available from any supermarket."
Nanocellulose makes up every green plant, but the traditional processing of nanocellulose from trees uses aggressive chemicals in the pulping process.
The potential of Agrisea's seaweed waste doesn't end with what's already being discovered.
"We're looking into extraction of other bioactives before making nanocellulose. We want to make use of their resource as much as possible."
He said working with the Paeroa company was a dream.
"It's my exemplar of how a Crown Research Institute can work with the industry.
"It's been awesome, they're forward looking but they've become more like friends. Because of that it's a real easy relationship to manage.
"Sometimes with science you can't predispose an outcome, and they're still cool with that. That's been the driver of the project - they've been open to opportunities."
When Tane's mum Jill first set up her business Ocean Organics in Paeroa, they couldn't afford to paint the whole building and would avoid taking customers around the back.
From an original staff of three in 1996, Ocean Organics became Agrisea in 2004 and now has 34 staff, including another research technician hired for their expanding innovations using seaweed.
"We're just a family doing our thing in the back blocks and now it's going crazy," says Tane.
The factory on the outskirts of Paeroa has opened its doors to hundreds of interested visitors, including local school and tertiary students.
Its work culture is obvious from the happy greetings by every staff member passed in the hall at the end of a workday Tuesday, and the games room and lunchroom where the "gin deck" was recently built.
Emblazoned on a wall are the words: "Customers are the most important people on our premises. They are not dependent on us, we are dependent on them. They are not an interruption to our work, they are the purpose of it ..."
Jill Bradley started the business in response to people asking for seaweed for horticultural use.
"We would give some to our friends and people would use it on their gardens and find that it was pretty good, and then friends would tell friends."
She explains in a short video clip of the company's beginnings that she "sold the kids' inheritance, moved to the beautiful Hauraki Plains, and lived in the back of a shop".
Once in Paeroa, the opportunities for innovating seaweed products for farmers and horticulturists led them to research the benefits of seaweed to soils, and its use as an alternative to chemicals.
They talked to farmers and discovered they wanted products in solid form as well as liquid.
"We're always learning what their needs are," says Tane.
As a child, Tane lived in Huia, west Auckland, and recognised seaweed as food, shelter and habitat for kai moana.
"That was my playground. Dad used to dive a lot and I was the lacky on the boat waiting.
"It still is food, shelter and habitat for everything else," he says.
"For me it's the ultimate."
While Ecklonia radiata is the mainstay native species that Agrisea works with, the seaweed species that's used in sushi - Undaria pinnatifida - is a species that Agrisea hopes to see managed, as a pest species that has established in many parts of New Zealand over the last 20 years.
'This decision has not been made lightly'.