Makers — Lazy Point Farms

Interested in working with sugar kelp? Are you trying it out in a recipe or product? Not sure what kelp even is? We can help!

We’re excited by the endless possible ways that seaweeds can be incorporated into our daily life. Healthy nourishment for humans and livestock, earth-friendly alternatives to plastic, innovative cosmetics, and eco-conscious products to build healthy plants are just the beginning!

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We welcome anyone interested in fresh or processed sugar kelp or its ingredients. Let’s work together to explore ways to utilize kelp - contact us for more information.

Kelp Uses

Kelp as an eco-conscious solution to build healthy plants

Products made from seaweed have the potential to go beyond merely replacing more harmful alternatives, and actually help heal the planet directly through their use.

Growing sugar kelp protects our shorelines and marine life. It forms the earth's "second lung" as it sequesters carbon more efficiently than trees, it restores biodiversity in our waters, and it scrubs the water from our nitrogen polluting habits.

Sugar kelp, when applied as a soil amendment or foliar spray, also can have beneficial impacts on soils (increased moisture retention and beneficial microbial activity), root development and fruit production. Commercial nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture are a significant source of water pollution. Excess nutrients added to the soil but not fully used by crops wash downstream and result in contaminated water and disrupted ecosystems. When used instead of commercial fertilizers on local agricultural products, seaweed creates a natural loop for nitrogen to move through the environment.

pictured above: Emily packages some kelp grown by our partners for use by local gardeners

Kelp Can form the basis of Eco-conscious bio-plastics & textiles

Non-degradable packaging accumulates in landfills and on our beaches, with at least 14.5 million tons of plastic ending up in our oceans each year. Some innovative creators are finding ways to use kelp and seaweed as a substitute for synthetic fibers or plastic packaging, replacing products which are actively harmful to the environment with more eco-conscious alternative. With naturally occurring properties like hydrophobicity and permeability, kelp can be broken down into sugars and carbon molecules and then reformed along the same lines of the polymers that make up more traditional plastic packaging.

pictured above: Seacell, manufactured by a German company, is a textile made from seaweed

Kelp to Nourish Ourselves

Seaweed is high in fiber and rich in iodine and other nutrients--it's one of the greatest natural gifts available that we can give to our bodies, both inside and out.

Sugar kelp can be eaten fresh in salads. It has been blanched, cut into strips and served as a healthy pasta substitute. Kelp can be a base for soups and broths or used as an alternative to animal protein or added to vegan favorites for flavor and texture. It can be blanched and vacuum packed, fresh frozen, pickled and dried.

Seaweeds are becoming increasingly popular worldwide as a food source. We created Lazy Point Farms because we believe in the future of kelp and that it should be easily available to all American families: on plates, for pets, as skin care, and in gardens as fertilizer.

pictured above: veggie tacos made with locally harvested pickled kelp stipes from Lazy Point Farms partner Susan Wicks' Violet Cove Oyster Company

Kelp in cosmetic and medical products

Delicious and nutritious as it may be, kelp has potential far beyond the dinner table. Brown seaweeds--like the sugar kelp grown by our Lazy Point Farms partners--contain a variety of soluble polysaccharides, making them useful for commonly manufactured products ranging from cosmetic to medical.

Fucoidan, laminarin, and carrageenan, which all occur at high levels in marine flora, have the potential to act as a protectant against photo-damage. Alginate, a viscous gum derived from macroalgae, has anti-bacterial, drug delivery and tissue engineering applications and is widely used in modern commercial hydrogel wound dressings.

pictured above: a body scrub made from a safflower sugar kelp reduction, calendula, vitamin E, rosemary, lavender, neroli, sea salt

Kelp to feed livestock

Seaweed is food…but not just for people! Not only is it a much more sustainable product that the corn or alfalfa that often makes up livestock diets, it also contains a number of bio-available nutrients and minerals like Iodine that can improve the health of ruminants and even, potentially, be passed on to human consumers of dairy products.

But it doesn’t end there. Cattle and related livestock are responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gases, but studies have shown that when certain algae species are included in livestock feeds, harmful methane emissions can be reduced by as much as 82%.

pictured above: our founder Justin Moore processing kelp following Lazy Point Farm’s first harvest season

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