Seaweed demand sees Chilean company target Europe with development agreement

As the demand for seaweed extracts increases around the world, Chilean company Gelymar enters into a commercial and development agreement with Eviagenics, focusing on developing natural and sustainable products and solutions for the personal care and food industries.

Seaweed has its uses in cosmetics products, particularly in skin care, due to its anti-aging properties; and Gelymar is one of the top global leaders in carrageenans, which are a family of linear sulphated polysaccharides that are extracted from red edible seaweeds.

Binding Gelymar with Eviagenics is part of the Chilean firm’s strategy to strengthen its position in Europe and develop altogether differentiated and exclusive solutions based on new sustainable technologies.

The goal for both companies is to amplify the offer of natural products, uniting knowledge, forces and years of experience to empower the fresh seaweed extracts market through sustainable natural products and textural solutions of high functionality delivering added value to their clients.

Seaweed demand

The demand for seaweed extracts keeps increasing globally, and the South American company believes that it is Europe that leads the way in consumption of these extracts.

Seaweeds can be exploited with the right techniques without filing an environmental impact and also, they are one of the few raw materials that only natural sea water is needed for their organic growth.

Carrageenans are seaweed derivatives that benefit from a very good consumer perception and correspond to the top trend as textural solutions for the elaboration of natural and sustainable products.

Foundations

Chile is probably the most strategic place worldwide when it comes to seaweed resource. With over 6,000 kilometers of coast, Chile benefits from the world largest raw material bio-diversity fed by the pristine and nutrient rich water coming from the Antarctic Ocean, the same place where Gelymar is based.

In Europe, Eviagenics, a privately owned company supported by three well established French private equities, has focused its effort over the last four years to develop innovative technologies for producing high value molecules like flavor, biopolymers or anti-oxidants out of renewable raw materials.