BioSWELL - Biotechnological Innovations for Optimised Seaweed Wellness & Economic Levelling-up

Despite the potential for commercial-scale seaweed cultivation in Scotland to generate over £70m by 2040, growth is hindered by challenges in linking supply with demand and limited diversity in valuable seaweed market applications.

BioMara aims to transform the Scottish seaweed-industry by building an innovative zero-waste cascading biorefinery process, generating maximum value from sustainably-farmed UK seaweed.

This innovative approach yields five products (fucoidan,beta-glucan,fibrous-biomass ingredient,alginates,and biostimulants) each targeting a specific application. BioMara's commercialisation strategy is to establish market demand for all products, ensuring process techno-economic viability, flexibility and swift commercialisation. The optimised extraction processes uphold all outputs as high-quality, food-grade, maximising market potential.

Fucoidan, a bioactive polysaccharide, is the highest-value output with numerous biological activities (anticancer,antioxidant,immunoregulatory,antiviral,antithrombotic, and anti-inflammatory properties). However, fucoidan faces a restricted market size due to its current concentration on nutraceuticals and predominantly Asian supply of low-quality, low-bioactive seaweed.

This project aims to increase the usability of high-quality, bioactive fucoidan in the food industry, targeting functional foods markets. Food manufacturers are responding to consumer demand (and government guidelines) for healthier ingredients offering specific health benefits _\[Food-Manufacture-2023\]_.

While fucoidan holds promise for functional foods, its industrial production and application is limited due to low yield (?3--30% per dry weight) and little rigorous scientific backing for health claims. Improved seaweed cultivation, and optimised fucoidan extraction methods ('green chemistry')_\[Anisha-2022;Hifney-2016__\]_ are key to addressing this challenge, in addition to optimising the bioactivity of fucoidan when designing functional food _\[Liu-2018;Shanthi-2021\]._

Focusing on advanced bio-based manufacturing, this 12-month project partners with Abertay University (AU) to pioneer state-of-the-art extraction, refinement, and processing techniques to improve the purity, retention and delivery of fucoidan bioactivity especially within food matrices. AU's novel 'in-vitro' research will seek to evidence fucoidan bioactivity absorption into the digestive system. Innovative purification processes will attain the highest-grade highly-bioactive fucoidan, positioning BioMara as a market-leader with a premium product, commanding premium prices.

Producing a valuable, sustainable, high-purity and traceable product from UK feedstocks, provides a distinctive provenance advantage. Collaboration with upstream seaweed farms and downstream food manufacturers, within Scotland, ensures the final outputs are fit for swift market adoption, addressing the current supply/demand challenges facing the industry.

Given the current reliance on imported fucoidan due to the lack of UK producers, BioMara aims to be the premier UK seaweed-biomass biorefinery. Aligned with 'Levelling Up' goals, the project advances bio-based manufacturing in Scotland to meet the rise in global demand for next-generation plant-based prebiotics and food additives.