#34: Jay Dignan (BioMara) – Cracking the Seaweed Code: How Fucoidan Unlocks a Profitable Business Model

As the founder of BioMara, a marine biotech startup based in Scotland, Jay Dignan is dedicated to transforming regenerative seaweed into functional and healthy B2B ingredients for the food and wellness industries. His professional journey began in New Zealand and includes a diverse range of experiences, from deep-sea salvage and working with Tibetan yak wool to media mergers and acquisitions.

Jay has over two decades of cross-disciplinary experience as a founder, CFO, and strategic consultant. His self-described "squiggly" career path was complemented by an MBA from a UK university. He is passionate about seaweed's potential to contribute to a sustainable future and help feed the world. Jay is focused on finding synergies among researchers, innovators, investors, and business leaders to help realise the promise of the seaweed industry for a healthier planet and healthier people.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro 
00:01:44 - Jay's Background and “Squiggly” Career Path
00:06:50 - The Importance of Diverse Experiences
00:10:33 - The Role of an MBA in an Entrepreneur's Journey
00:14:03 - The Tibetan Yak Herder Experience
00:20:31 - The Challenges of the Western Seaweed Industry
00:24:54 - Frustrations Faced as an Ocean Entrepreneur
00:34:25 - The Founding of BioMara and Its Business Model
00:41:02 - Developing and Validating the biorefinery System
00:43:43 - Understanding BioMara's Core Products
00:46:40 - The Potential of Fucoidan in Human Health
00:54:19 - Lessons from the Ashwagandha and Manuka Honey Markets
00:58:55 - The "Health by Stealth" Approach
01:09:18 - The Process of Building a Founding Team
01:12:54 - A Call to Action for Food and Nutraceutical Companies

Useful Links & Resources:

Jay Dignan on LinkedIn

BioMara’s website: Food & Wellness. Products: Seafibrex & Thalivra & Revyntra

BioMara on Linkedin

Biomara’s White Paper on Fucoidan 

Scientific paper by BioMara’s team with an overview of fucoidan, its applications and extraction technique.

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Get in touch with The Ocean Age's host Fed DeGobbi on ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠, ⁠⁠X⁠⁠ or by emailing directly at fed@oceanage.co

The Ocean Age Podcast is produced by Charlotte Raffo and edited by Nebojsa Lešević. Sarah Carpenter and Giulia Leanza are our research assistants. Eliana Caragia manages Distribution and Engagement. 

Please send in your feedback: what do you want to hear more or less of? Any suggestions? Would love to hear what you think!

Transcript

Fed DeGobbi:
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Ocean Age. This is the podcast for the entrepreneurs and professionals who are building something remarkable, it being businesses or careers in the ocean economy. I'm Fed DeGobbi, and my job here is to interview some of the best players in the ocean space, extracting the strategies, the frameworks, the ideas, and actionable insights so that you guys can not only be inspired, but also Take away some practical lessons that you can immediately go and apply in your ocean journey. and they've developed a process for extracting high-value compounds from seaweed. These compounds are then used by consumer brands to make dietary supplements, cosmetics, and they're even added to food products like bread. The reason why I think this is super valuable is that it really shows you a model for making high-margin products using seaweed. We also did a really interesting deep dive on a compound called Foucauldan, which I think is extremely promising for reasons that you'll find out about in a few moments. So please enjoy. Jay, welcome to The Ocean Age. Great to have you here. Thanks for having me. I wanted to come on for a while now, so this is great. We made it happen.

Jay Dignan: Yeah, made it happen.

Fed DeGobbi: So we were sort of saying, just before hitting record, that you're originally from New Zealand. You started your career in Auckland. And I lived in Auckland for about four years. And I always thought New Zealand was, in New Zealand in general, would be a great place to grow up in. How was it for you?

Jay Dignan: Yeah, I feel actually very lucky, sort of blessed to have grown up in New Zealand. I think it's a great, great place. I still miss it actually a lot, even though I'm on the other side of the world. One of the things about growing up in New Zealand is you're always beside or in the ocean. And so you're exploring the coastline, you're surfing, you're fishing. And yeah, we grew up going to our family batch. I don't know if you know what a batch is. That's something I can explain. It's like a holiday home, we call it a batch. And our batch was literally on the coastline, three meters from the beach, at the end of the beach. So we had the whole beach to ourselves. And yeah, we spent the summers up there. Of course, in the water at the time, and now, of course, all around the world, there is the slimy brown thing that floats in the ocean that you, at the time, were not so keen on swimming through too much, but now have learned to appreciate very much, not only for the work it does within the ocean, but for the potential it has as a natural resource. And so, yeah, New Zealand was a great start. for me, gave me good appreciation. But of course, since then, I've traveled the world, lived on this side of the world for a long, long time. And where were you based in Auckland? I grew up in Auckland, but I was born down in Dunedin, actually, which is the south of the South Island. So the other end of the country. And yeah, we spent a lot of time down there around Queen's Santa Monica and the mountains down there as well. Fantastic.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, I spent more time in the North Island because I was raised in Auckland. But I remember going up north toward Russell and the Bay of Islands. Exactly. Which is a beautiful, beautiful part of New Zealand.

Jay Dignan: That's where the batch is based, yeah. So why were you in Auckland? Were you working or was it study?

Fed DeGobbi: I was, I was, yeah. I sort of started my career a bit like you. I started my sort of professional career in Auckland because I finished my studies between Italy and Canada and then decided to go to Auckland for a few years. Well, I sort of, I went there thinking I was going to stay for maybe a year and do like a work experience to get started. And one year turned into four because I enjoyed it so much. And yeah, it just was going so well that why not? Right, so I'm looking at my notes and I've got deep sea salvage operations, touring the Tibetan plateau with nomadic yak herders, working in media and entertainment with companies like Sony Pictures. Finance, you've been an accountant, a consultant, a coach, a co-founder. It sounds like your career trajectory is somewhat unusual, but do you feel it is unusual? Or is it actually a normal and quite healthy path to get to entrepreneurship?

Jay Dignan: I think it's a healthy path to get to entrepreneurship for sure, as you say. I feel like I've had, I think I put on LinkedIn one time, I don't know if it's still there, the word squiggly and people ask me what the word squiggly means. It is still there. Yeah. So it just means I've jumped from great opportunity to great opportunity and used what I've learned in my experience in the next phase of my career. Starting in accounting out of university, I was doing accounting and then moved into finance in London, M&A with media organizations and then a lot of experience in different startups and small businesses as founder, CFO, consultant. And the cool thing about it was those are all in different industries. So as you said, it's been a bit of a rollercoaster, but also really great from an experience point of view.

Fed DeGobbi: Absolutely. I mean, you tried all different things, you learned a lot, I imagine, from different people and sectors, then I guess founded a company that you believed in. Maybe it isn't the stereotypical founder story, but it is a path that I can see very valuable. Would you recommend it to entrepreneurs?

Jay Dignan: I would actually, because I think the classic entrepreneur path is maybe a bit harder and shorter, but what I've done is able to build that experience and use that experience, especially the last 15 years before founding Bayamara, advising founders and supporting founders in their struggles. And then when you finally start becoming a founder yourself and you've tried two or three times as you are likely to do, or 10 times as other people do, then you've learned from that experience and you can sort of look back to say, oh, that's what I would have said to the founder in that situation, to not worry so much about this, but focus just on the important things, the product market fit, the feedback from the customer, those type of really important things. And yeah, I also feel that not only the work experience and the career, a lot of it is really just understanding people, understanding the world, how it works, understanding value chains and supply chains, understanding the relationships you need to build in business. And at the end of the day, a lot of that comes down to those things. For example, spending time, you know, as you said, on the Tibetan Plateau, searching for suppliers of yak wool for our ethical fashion brand that I was consulting on, or being on a ship in the middle of that Antarctic Ocean doing deep sea salvage work, meeting treasure hunters. And, you know, it was a fascinating period. They build these relationships and it shows you that business is really built all around these relationships. not only the key point, which is the product market fit and finding a commercialized, commercial successful, commercial profitable business with unit economics that actually work,

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, I wanted to maybe try and dissect some of the key milestones in your career. In particular, I'd love to understand what was your internal dialogue or your motivation in making the choices that you've made, you know, taking on the roles that you did. What was going through your head?

Jay Dignan: I think for the first half of my career, I'd say, and this is more in the corporate world, going from accounting through to corporate, you know, being on big deals, a couple of those media deals were over 100 million. So I was supporting, you know, in a small team alongside the finance director at CFO, as finance director. So I think the key point there was They're really great opportunities to learn, to progress within the organization, but to move then to the next step, which was post-merger integration. And from there, having that experience as a financial leader to take to startups and really add value within startups. And so the decision to move into the startup world was basically getting some skin in the game, as well as taking that experience from that more corporate world and deal M&A type experience into the smaller companies where it was needed from a fundraising point of view, from an exit point of view. and also just optimization through that growth stage of small companies where you're needing to put structures in place around the founding team. So you work for a number of different companies. Was that for what, like 15? That was probably for the first 10 years or so. Yeah. And then last 10 years I've been in startups and on two or three occasions I've been So nutrition coaching, cycle holidays, sort of smaller projects that I did. And then the most successful one was a distribution company. And that's still ongoing actually with two other co-founders distributing sports products around ski resorts in Europe. So that was a really good experience building something from scratch. And then we can talk further about the decision then to do an MBA and sort of refocus, reset. And the MBA was part of that that I did at Warwick University Business School. And this was a real reset because I'd always aimed at being an entrepreneur and having my own business. think after those last 10 years of smaller companies that founding, I wanted to sort of do a reset because I thought, you know, build something big, have impact on the world, change the world through building something. And I think that the MBA doesn't give you, maybe if you've got all that experience, it doesn't give you like academic, you know, you don't learn much from that point of view, but it gives you a nice point to reset and have the confidence even to start something again, start something from scratch and go big.

Fed DeGobbi: When you say reset, what do you mean? The reason I'm asking is I was thinking about this this morning because the last guest we had on, Kira Smiley, she was with Title X. She was one of the sort of founding team with Title X and She just announced yesterday, I think, that she's stepping down to pursue an MBA. And I was sort of, as I was having breakfast, I was sort of thinking, what pushes you to do that when you've sort of had those hands-on experiences in business from X, the moonshot factory, building a successful company of that type? and basically being at the forefront of technology and entrepreneurship with AI. And I sort of caught myself thinking, what is an MBA going to add when you are dealing with something like AI and machine learning and that level of advanced technology that is not probably going to get into those MBAs for another five years?

Jay Dignan: That's a really valid question. And I think I struggled with the same question as well when I was deciding to do it. I think there's a couple of different perspectives. One is that it's sort of an accepted standard way to go about progressing your career. That's maybe less something that's important to a lot of people. And you talk to Warren Buffett, of course, he would be completely against that because it puts you in this box. It teaches you in a frame, in a box, and then you go into consulting with Kinsey or something. So it's not something that an entrepreneur should necessarily have as being stuck in a box. You should be creative and trying things that have not been tried before and having more freedom of expression from that point of view. So putting that aside, I think the main reason that people do it and that I did it, and maybe this person you're talking about has done it, is this reset reasoning where it does give you a nice overview and it's not in-depth, it's not, from an academic point of view, as I said, it's not going to give you massive insights because you've had experience and you've, especially as an entrepreneur, you've touched all of these parts of the business from marketing through to finance, through to leadership and strategy. But what it does is it gives you a nice rounded overview and it makes you sort of forces yourself to spend a little bit of time thinking about it. And through the whole process of doing it, you're actually thinking, how can I use this in my next venture? And what it does is it, and no one would admit this, but it basically gives you confidence. so that you can start something afresh with no internal monologue which says you're not good enough, no imposter syndrome. It really gives you that confidence. That's how I would describe it. And if you talk to people that have done an MBA, they'll say similar things. They'll say, you don't learn that much because it's too intense and too short and too high level. But then they'll immediately follow that up with another comment to say, but then afterwards I did X, Y, Z, which was amazing. Or I met this person and this person and this person, and we're still in touch and they give me great advice. So there's always that, after that sort of follow up to the people that are actually quite negative about MBAs.

Fed DeGobbi: So maybe it's a lot about the mindset, the network, the mentality and exposure to different people and different ways of thinking.

Jay Dignan: Yeah, and it definitely helped for me. I mean, I was exposed to seaweed during that and that was my dissertation topic, the strategy. And so that's where it all started, actually. Out of that, I was able to raise money and start Baromara based on that.

Fed DeGobbi: Let's put a pin on that. We're going to take a step back because there's no way we're leaving the yak herders. What is that about?

Jay Dignan: Well, you know, Merino wool, you know, cashmere, those type of natural fibers, which are really beautiful and soft and have a lot of benefits. yak wool, and it's not the wool, it's actually the wool that's shed each year, and actually it's picked up off the ground, you don't have to shave the yaks or shear them. So I met a guy who had a company producing yak wool clothing, and it's still in existence, it's called Kuna. K-H-U-N. And this was in New Zealand? No, this is in the UK. But he was sourcing from the Tibetan Plateau. It's actually within China, but it's the Tibetan Plateau. And so part of this fundraising effort that we did together and sort of strategizing we did together, which is why I was involved, was going to the Tibetan Plateau. As part of that, three of us got on our bikes cycling and spent two and a half weeks cycling across this part of the plateau and actually just trying to go with a goal in mind, but also on the way trying to meet people and trying to find herders that would be potential suppliers. And we did meet three or four potential suppliers and then organised a sort of central aggregation place where the processing could happen to get the fibres out that could be then sent off to the factories to make the clothing. And so this experience you know, like many others I've had in various other roles, was great because as I said, it showed you all of the parts of the business. In particular for this one, it was the supply chain and how important that supply chain piece, you know, and we could draw parallels to seaweed in that regard as well. And also the story, I mean, because it was heard as the lowest socioeconomic group within China, you know, a displaced sort of minority within China as well. That whole story flowed through the brand, and that was really important to understand from a marketing point of view.

Fed DeGobbi: And you went straight to the source, straight to the herders. And these people are nomadic, so I'm assuming no appointment, no nothing.

Jay Dignan: No, we were just cycling our bikes, meeting people. And I would say, Between 50 and 100 times a day, people are asking us to come and stay in their yurts. Everyone's so interested to see people on bikes because you don't see bikes out there. Everyone has their little scooters. We were having to stop every few minutes to take photos. Of course, everyone is living on the poverty line, but they all have the latest iPhone, which is pretty funny. and taking selfies with all of these herders across the plateau. And you're at sort of about 4,000 meters vertical, so it's quite high. And yeah, it was a great adventure and a success too, because we were meeting potential suppliers and able to sort of see their herds because it was the right time of year. They had them all together and they weren't up higher in the mountains. So yeah, it was excellent.

Fed DeGobbi: What's the landscape out there? Is it super remote?

Jay Dignan: Yeah. Is there roads? Yeah, there's roads. And in fact, China is spending a lot of money in sort of making these huge highways and huge train lines through up that joint into places like Nepal and all across the other half of China, which is less, which is much more remote. But the roads weren't bad. They were OK. And half of the day, you're in this super remote area where you can't see anything, might come across a couple of small tents or little village. But then there were bigger towns along the way, and so you would find different food in those towns, you'd find different types of food. So of course the Tibetan nomadic herders would have all yak, yak butter, yak milk, yak meat, using the yak fat on the fire to cook in the middle of the little place there. Whereas the Chinese food, it's more fried and different things. So from a nutrition point of view, traveling the world is really important for people to do to understand different ways of eating different flavors and different nutritious ingredients as well.

Fed DeGobbi: What were the biggest lessons that you took away from this one in particular or other similar experience that you may have had that you still keep with you and maybe even apply?

Jay Dignan: Well, I apply them I think every day because it's a lot of learnings. That period of, you know, those 10 years where I was in startups and smaller companies, the learnings that you have to have a business model that works in the first place. So there's sort of this big idea, the big vision, and then there's the business model. And there's so many different types of business models within the value chain. There's different ways of approaching. But then this business model, it's the standard stuff. It's like, who's the customer? What's the customer's problem? And it's often great to solve your own problem. And then you go about finding that product market fit. And it's a very standard way, I would say, business school 101. that people talk about a lot, but it's all pretty standard. And a lot of people don't do it. What they do is they sort of go straight to a product or they go straight to this big vision of saving the oceans without thinking of the rest. It's like the obvious known thing that is so easy to overlook. Yeah, exactly. It's the 101 which people just forget as they get into the detail of trying to solve the health of the oceans. They think, oh, seaweed will do that. Let's farm lots of seaweed. But, you know, first question, who are you selling it to? And then, you know, where's the front? Where's the market? What's the market? How big is the market? What's the sort of price, price unit economics? All of these sort of basics, which I think are overlooked from a lot of companies, especially in the startup land, hence the huge failure rate in startup land.

Fed DeGobbi: Absolutely. And that's where a lot of entrepreneurs get really passionate about the solution.

Jay Dignan: Yup. Yup.

Fed DeGobbi: And they kind of forget about the customer.

Jay Dignan: Yeah, the customer's key, of course, and the market.

Fed DeGobbi: We mentioned seaweed. We've got to go into the seaweed industry and space in a bit more detail. I do want to know how you found out about seaweed. You mentioned it was about around the time when you did your MBA. How you discovered the seaweed industry and specifically, most importantly, me even, what made you pay attention to it?

Jay Dignan: So yes, it was during the MBA, a friend introduced me, said, read this article. And then I just did a deep dive, more and more articles, more and more scientific papers. I mean, a key point to notice first is it's a nascent industry in the West, and this is something that means in my mind that there's a lot of potential, but it also could mean there's just a lot of hype and nothing there. So the deep dive revealed that there could be something there, and that's how I got introduced to it, through that process of deep diving and deciding to do my dissertation topic on strategy within this nascent seaweed industry and what that might look like.

Fed DeGobbi: Right you know i got into a lot of conversation about the street specifically in the west and what entrepreneurs do to make or should do to make something that works and i feel that too many times i landed on a rather pessimistic. Conclusion that it is extremely challenging to find a business model that works and that very few people manage to crack the code. I'm kind of hoping that you will disagree with that statement at least partially and you can talk about one business model that you feel works. How does one build a profitable business in the industry here in europe or north america in twenty twenty five.

Jay Dignan: Yeah, and you're right, it's very different in the West. You do have to qualify it by saying in the West, because in Asia, it's eaten as a food product, it's farmed at a very low cost, so it works. There is unit economics that work there and it's a natural part of their diet. So first point, people are not just going to start eating seaweed in the West. In Europe, you're not going to just magically change our diets from a food point of view. But to take a step back and looking at seaweed, and one of the reasons it's so interesting, and one of the reasons it piqued my interest in the first place, of course, you know this, it can do so many different things. So it's promising to be a bioplastic, textile, energy, animal feed. All of these things are very interesting from a seaweed point of view, what product you could create. But the more you look at those and the more you realize how much it takes to process the technology, the R&D you need, but especially just one thing, just look at it's 90% water and how much you might need to supply to compete in the plastics industry or other industries, dyes or something like that. So then you take a step back further and say, well, if this is the price of this commodity, how will it work and what volumes do I need? And it makes it really difficult. So you do actually land on quite a negative outlook on the seaweed industry in the West. So I do sympathize with you, you know, that it is negative, but there is a way forward. And I think, you know, I've spent that process of going through the dissertation and post that MBA, a lot of time thinking about this and working on the positive way forward. and to add value to the seaweed rather than trying to sort of fractionate it and sell it as a commodity, say a fertilizer, a plastic, something like that. And basically the only way to do that, in our opinion, is to look at the higher value components, so the phycoidin and other bioactives within seaweed that can be sold at a higher price point. And this isn't a premium pricing, this is just a higher price point, so that it is competitive within the market. And so that pricing means that there is a business model that can work with unit economics that works. And the key point here is as well, with the price of seaweed supply in Europe. So I see a lot of startups saying, you know, in three years, when the price comes down to a fraction of what it is now, we might make profit. We haven't done that. We've said, what's the price now? And we've still got high margins with that price based on the products that we're producing and standard prices for those products. If the price goes down in the future, we'll make more margin.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, but as it stands, the big issue is that there's a mismatch in terms of price, right? That the price that the producers need to get for each kilo is higher than the price that the processors are willing to pay for each kilo. Is that a fair summary?

Jay Dignan: I think that's a fair part of the problem. Yeah, that's a part of the problem. It's not the whole summary. I think there's a couple of other things. So one is that you're competing in commodity markets, like I mentioned plastics and fertilizer. These have huge incumbents that are not just going to roll over and take a new natural product easily on board. And it's hard for the existing users of these chemical-based or petrochemical-based products to switch, because these chemical-based, petrochemical-based products have been proven over many years, and a lot of money has been poured into those solutions. So that's one part of it. The supply is also not just the price, but a lot of people, for example, are looking at sargassum and other algae blooms as supply. I think you at some point need to realize that that's maybe not sustainable forever, or you don't know what it will be next year, even. You don't know the quality. And yeah, it's something that's just not reliable and consistent. So you need that reliable, consistent supply in the future too. And then, yeah, just the unit economics and the volumes. So as I mentioned, it's 90% water. If you were going to really compete in fertilizer or plastics, you would need millions of tons of seaweed. Where are you going to get that from?

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, the production is just not there at the moment.

Jay Dignan: At the moment, maybe in the future, hopefully in the future. And I'm not saying the other seaweed startups are doing something that's a waste of time. I'm really positive. I'm really hopeful for the whole industry. And they're doing amazing things with great products. They're just a price premium because of all of these reasons that I've just given.

Fed DeGobbi: Outside of all of these reasons, what do you feel is your biggest frustration as an entrepreneur in the seaweed industry at the moment?

Jay Dignan: Not really the things I've just mentioned. We're pretty confident in our supply chains, we're pretty confident in our pricing, confident in the market, and those type of things for a business commercial point of view. One of the frustrations is in talking to potential investors and finance providers, is the fact that we want to scale, we are scaling, we have production running. And I think the venture has gone out of venture capital a little bit. So maybe the last few years, we're more looking at series A raises rather than late seed stage raises as being the thing that a lot of VCs are focused on. And so the frustration, it's not something which I'm you know, moaning too much about because, you know, we have a successful business and we have a great product, so we'll get there in the end. It's just that I think maybe if you were five years ago, from an impact business point of view, you would have found it much easier to raise money. at a much earlier stage than we are now. Luckily, we do already have a great investor profile. So we've got traction and we've been very successful in Innovate UK Grants, getting grant money in and things like that for keeping a very small team and a low run rates. So we can extend that and just build that traction over the next six months as we've been focused on probably the last 12 months. So that's probably the only frustration I would mention. It's not something actually I was planning to mention on this podcast because that's not what this podcast is about. That's, yeah, that's the thing that comes to mind.

Fed DeGobbi: No, absolutely. You know, I think it is an important one and an interesting one for impact entrepreneurs out there, particularly in the ocean space. What do you think is behind this phenomenon?

Jay Dignan: Well, it's difficult to say really. You could talk, you could point to many different things, geopolitical concerns, just liquidity generally, the change from a tariff point of view and all of the impact that's having. And then maybe the fact that there was a lot of hype around ESG and I don't know if hype's the right word, but around ESG and those type of investments, because they're just not sure whether it is the key to the future. I would disagree completely, of course, and say it is still very much the key to the future of not only the world, but people's health, people's nutrition and better products. But I feel there's a few things that are convalescing that maybe make the investing climate a bit, the fundraising climate a bit more difficult these days.

Fed DeGobbi: With that in mind, if you had little to no money and wanted to get started as an entrepreneur in the seaweed space today, what steps would you take?

Jay Dignan: So if you had no money or little money in the seaweed space, you would really just have to start with that product market fit immediately. So you're buying in a very stabilized raw product and somehow incorporating it, formulate it in a direct-to-consumer product. For a B2B product to add value to process it, you would need money to do that, and that's what we've done. This is something that I hope more and more people do. You see people doing it. I don't think it's got the customer awareness and the customer traction. yet, but it will hopefully in the future. You see the likes of Dr. Seaweed, for example, Craig Rose there with his direct-to-consumer brand. So yeah, I hope that that picks up. We wanted to focus on the bigger, more stable markets, the B2B businesses, food and wellness ingredients. I think that's where you'd start if you're an entrepreneur with little or no money in the seaweed space, because then you're getting that immediate market feedback and then able to iterate your product to hopefully build the awareness and go viral. Maybe it's a green powder, a green drink powder or… capsule, which has specific health benefits, something like that.

Fed DeGobbi: And go straight to the consumer.

Jay Dignan: Yeah, because marketing, Shopify, marketing online, you know, that's the way to do it. You could easily do a small run and then a blend, blend a manufacturer for, for little, little money. So yeah, we've spent a lot of money on our R&D and our process development, you know, stabilization and extraction technology, which is paid and pending. So that, that wouldn't be the way to go. for someone that's just selling off by themselves.

Fed DeGobbi: So it needs to be something existing where a seaweed ingredient or compound offers a competitive advantage to solve an existing problem on the customer side.

Jay Dignan: Yeah, and I would also caveat that as well by saying a lot of people are looking at fertilisers and bioplastics. I think that's a much more difficult customer proposition. You have to go into the human food or human health area. As long as the regulations, you're okay from a regulatory point of view, that's the way to do it because that's where the main traction could come and you can really charge a price premium. if you're a direct consumer like that. And that price premium comes from the marketing, from the story, the awareness of the customers, which could, you know, like. I look at Irish sea moss in the States, and I don't know if you know that story, but it's been popularized by a famous actor, it might be Jordan in the States. It seems to be pretty huge. It's a massive market, massive demand. It's just the dried seaweed from sea moss. It's incredible. It's not what we're doing at all. So you get something viral like that and those health benefits from a product, which is very simple. can be leveraged massively over the market direct to consumer.

Fed DeGobbi: I wonder what was the problem that Irish Moss went out to solve?

Jay Dignan: It was like the next health ad in the industry. What could be the next health ad that's something that's unknown, which has some great benefits from a nutrition point of view, I would say. And yeah, lots of marketing. This is a little bit different from what we're talking about from our B2B ingredients, I would say, because we're based on science, a lot of detail in the science and R&D side of things.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, I think we will move on to that now because I feel like we could have a whole podcast episode on the direct-to-consumer and how to create a business or how to create a seaweed product. But I do feel that there's also a certain amount of randomness and unpredictability. Who could have predicted that Irish Moss was going to blow up the way it did? And would it have done if it hadn't been for that particular celebrity that mentioned it and that side of the chain reaction? And from an entrepreneur perspective, it's very difficult, borderline impossible to predict or make that happen.

Jay Dignan: You need a lot of luck. It's great that they did it, of course. But yeah, the direct-to-consumer is definitely not at all what Biomar is focused on. I would say there's plenty of opportunity at that side of things, whether you're formulating a new capsule for longevity or whether you're incorporating it into the latest bread muffin, as we've done as well. But yeah, all of these potential direct-to-consumer products are interesting.

Fed DeGobbi: Definitely let's switch to buy them so after you after you completed your MBA. Learn about seaweed you found the biomarker how did the company come about you as you learn about cvd understood that the opportunity was downstream in the value chain. Indeed processing seaweed to leverage while you are the product. Now starting a cv processing company is not something you can exactly do from your living room with a laptop and internet connection so what happened.

Jay Dignan: Yeah, so you mentioned in the value chain, I think one of the key learnings from that time period was vertical integration is probably not the way forward. You're looking at different business models, very different focuses, different unique economics for each of the pieces in the value chain. Farming seaweeds like farming or land-based agriculture, so it's not something that I thought was the way forward because not only is it low margin, high infrastructure costs, et cetera, but there was no one to sell to. So where are you going to find that product market fit? You have to go downstream into the processing. So that's sort of the first learning and that's how that thought process started. So then you say, what's the product? What could be the market and the product and what's the problem we're solving? And so looking at that, you Are we going to go direct-to-consumer or B2B? As we just talked about, direct-to-consumer is difficult. You need that luck factor. You're probably at a price premium. And what are you going to incorporate that makes a differentiated product? Is it just going to be some seaweed or is it going to be something interesting? We wanted to create an innovative new product or range of products from seaweed by transforming sustainably harvested local seaweeds with a business model which works. And I think the focus for us throughout that period in creating BioMaro was, we have to have technology which differentiates us and is optimized for extracting the highest value molecule within seaweeds. So that's where we focused on for Koidan. And our whole business has been focused around the phycoidin molecule, which I can talk about a little bit later on. So it's that differentiation, and extraction, and technology, and process. That's where the IP is in the business, and the extraction technology, using specific species that we're using from specific locations.

Fed DeGobbi: So just to make people understand, I suppose, the rest of the conversation, fucoidin, we'll do a deep dive later, but for the purpose of what we're talking about now, fucoidin is a compound that is used for human health benefits.

Jay Dignan: Yes, it's a bioactive used for human health.

Fed DeGobbi: But what you are focusing on at this point in the Biomara story is the extraction technology, right? There's a couple of things that I would really love to understand is, first of all, how did you go about putting that together? At this point, you're just out of your MBA study, and presumably it's just you at that point. How do you go about putting together a seaweed processing or seaweed extraction company? And what was unique about your approach and the technology that you've developed?

Jay Dignan: The first thing, of course, was to build a team around that idea and find people which believed in the same vision and that had the experience and expertise. And so We have a great little team and there's still only a few of us. We deliberately remained small and nimble so we could respond to that market feedback when we got it. But this team is full of scientists. I'm the only non-scientist in the team, the main commercial perspective. So these, you know, psychology expertise, regulatory expertise, processing expertise are within the team. And we've got decades of experience on each of these areas, which are big pieces in a puzzle, which you need to not only do the R&D, but bring that R&D to commercial fruition. And that's where I see others in the industry, maybe, or in startup world as well. There's one of those pieces of the puzzle might be missing. It's difficult to cover all of them. So that was the key initial steps that Biomara had to go through to build this team and this experience. And then, yeah, so what I would say is that the vision and the business model hasn't changed for us because It's really all built around what is profitable and what will, of course, you know, the big idea of having impact, positive impact on the ocean. That's the overarching idea, I would say. And it's still the original. Yeah, it's still the original. As we said at the start, that's not the problem. That's not the solution for the customer or anything like that. It's this overarching idea that seaweeds and especially farming of seaweed and scale is going to help, you know, the health of the oceans. and help feed the world and help improve the health of the world as well, both people and planet. And so that overarching idea, very easy to get people on board from that point of view. And really it's then digging down on the business model and the mission of Biomara, which is around that technology piece. We have patent pending technology, And so this is on increasing yields and optimization for the extraction of that molecule, the coitin that we mentioned. And the other piece to the puzzle there I should mention is that we settled on a biorefinery type concept. I don't say the word biorefinery too much because it does confuse people. They think of oil or they think of a whole multitude of products. We're quite focused on our verticals, which is food and nutraceuticals and also cosmeceuticals. But we wanted to have a range of products, so there was a zero waste biorefinery concept in place. And so we've looked at the fiber ingredient, the bioactives. We've got an alginate extraction, which is high-grade alginates, which has a really market we're really happy with, and that's got plenty of different uses. Of course, the highest value market we're going into is human food as well, which complements our other products. And then we're looking at flavorings as well as the final liquid fraction.

Fed DeGobbi: Okay, so biorefining as in using all the components of the biomass that you're bringing in?

Jay Dignan: Yeah, zero-waste cascading biorefinery concept.

Fed DeGobbi: How long did it take to develop this system and was there any obstacle or breakthrough moment in developing it?

Jay Dignan: Well, it took a lot longer than I wanted it to take. That's probably the answer. And it's still the answer. Because, yeah, as you mentioned previously too, with this sort of digging into the seaweed industry, especially around processing, it is difficult. It's a challenging biomass. It's a biomass which is not that well understood, or only a few species in the world are understood. And there's thousands of species. People don't realize that they're all quite different from a compositional point of view, depending on not only the species actually, where they were harvested, when they're harvested makes a difference as well. So yeah, very challenging inputs and stabilization of that to get it through into the process. That's one point. And then the next point is we want to be able to extract this high value molecule, the target compound, without degrading its bioactivity. So we've basically been able to keep the natural bioactivity natural, which is really related to the natural molecular structure of the phycoidin target compound that we're abstracted. And to do that, there's a lot of trial and error. There's a lot of, well, we've even used machine learning, different models to look at optimization of variables. We've had a lot of testing on the outputs, not only the phycoidin, but the food ingredient, the other bioactive, the beta-glucans, etc. And yeah, it was difficult. In the original plan, I think we had two pilot trials planned. We've done now five pilot trials, the last one at CPI in the UK, which is the biggest bioprocessing and best bioprocessing facility in the UK. And it costs a lot of money to do that, but we're really happy with the validation of both the process and the products after that. And from that, we're able to have a bunch of samples in our initial product for the MPD projects, which are ongoing and finished now, which means orders are coming to the door. Yeah, we're really happy with that validation process. It did take a lot longer than expected because of all those challenges that I mentioned. And not only the inputs and the process technology, but just the optimization of that technology that we're using. It's not reinventing the wheel as such because it's all technology which has been used in other industries, but it's actually the first time it's all been applied to seaweed. A lot of people are looking at biorefinery, a few other startups I would say, looking at the biorefinery concept. I think There's a lot of different approaches there, but for us, the really key differentiating factor is we're focused on that target molecule and optimizing for that. I always say you have to do one thing really well and be world leader in one thing.

Fed DeGobbi: Let's dive into BioMirror's main products. So I know that there are three main ingredients that you produce. What are they and what are their strengths? So I'll first talk about the phycoidin extract.

Jay Dignan: The first thing to say is that phycoidin is the general term. It's a fucose containing sulfated polysaccharide, and this is in every brown seaweed. It's in some other, it's in sea cucumbers I think as well, but it's really only from seaweed that you find phycoidin. So it's a general term for that molecule within brown seaweeds, but as I mentioned there's thousands of different types of seaweeds, which means there are a thousand different types of phycoidin.

Fed DeGobbi: Is that why it is sometimes referred to as phocoidins, plural?

Jay Dignan: Phocoidins, yeah. Often you see in scientific papers that say phocoidins because there are so many different molecular structures. Let's talk about it like this. There's sort of a fingerprint of a phocoidin within each species. Also, on top of that, as I mentioned, it depends when it's harvested and where it's harvested. So there's all of these factors which influence the type of ekoidin you're going to get. So put that aside. The biggest factor, in fact, is it's processed, how it's taken out of the seaweed. And that's where, as I've said, we've focused our efforts in retaining that natural structure of the phacoidin through our process to be able to isolate it. And so the bioprocessing, the isolation of that target compound has been the focus for us from the start. And it doesn't mean it's 100% pure. You would have to go through a lot of other steps to get a 100% pure molecule. That would be more pharmaceutical grade. It's possible, but it's not really necessary. We have a high purity through using this gentle water-based physical extraction process that we have. It's chemical free and part of this biorefinery concept as well. So just so that gives the overview of phycoidin and what it is before we start talking about the products.

Fed DeGobbi: And it sounds like it is very important, not only the level of purity, but also the fact that you don't want to alter the compound, you don't want to alter the bioactivity of the compound. You kind of want to leave it alone, leave it untouched.

Jay Dignan: Yeah, and that's where I think a lot of producers who use harsh chemicals to extract, they're destroying that compound, they're destroying the bioactivity. And we've benchmarked against a lot of other suppliers on that side of things, and you see that we wouldn't even call it phycoidin.

Fed DeGobbi: What do we know, sorry to jump in, what do we currently know about phycoidin? What does the research tell us? Because the reason you have decided to focus on phycoidin is because of the potential of this compound. What do we know about it?

Jay Dignan: Yeah, there's a lot of scientific literature from all over the world. There's more and more in the West. There's a lot over the last sort of 10 years out of Asia. But what we know about it is that it's got a huge potential in various different applications from wound healing to immunity to gut health. to skin health, antifungal applications, antimicrobial, antiviral applications, which we're also studying. So sort of like seaweed itself, the raw ingredient, there's all of this promise for what phycoidin could be. But that doesn't, as we said at the start about seaweed, that doesn't mean you should try and do everything. You should look at what you've got look at what the market's demanding, and then put those two together. And so that's why we're focused on gut health as our first product, which is the Levra product. It's a nutraceutical application for gut health, and we've done a lot of preclinical studies, we've got clinical studies going on. And so we're looking at a nutraceutical market for that, and that's where we've decided to focus for our phycoidin from that species to start with. One of the other factors around that decision, though, is the regulatory side of things. So you have novel foods approval.

Fed DeGobbi: I was going to ask you about that. It is a very relevant one, isn't it? Because if you're putting something into capsules or tablets for people to consume, then you immediately enter the food and supplements regulatory environment. What can you tell me about that? It sounds a nightmare.

Jay Dignan: Well, it's not. It's not if you know what you're doing. It's actually sort of quite simple if you know what you're doing. To start with, it sounds like a nightmare. Yeah, so there are, phycoidin is a refined extract. So that means it does have to have an all food approval. And there are only two approved phycoidins allowed. So with one of our products, which is the lever product, is one of those. And that means that we can sell it as a food ingredient. It's also got, you know, and we're looking at grass approval, FDA approval, FSA approval in the UK as well. So from a regulatory standpoint, we've had a lot of help from consultants on the roadmap for the regulatory side of things.

Fed DeGobbi: As you bring this compound to the market, is it difficult? I guess this is not so much a problem for you, but for the customers selling these supplements and nutraceuticals direct to the consumers. But I'm sure it's something that you're thinking about because I guess it's what your customers care about. Is it difficult for them to make health claims around flucoilans and products containing flucoilans?

Jay Dignan: Again, it's just a matter of understanding what you can and can't say, and on the regulatory side of things. So the health claims are connected to the regulatory piece, and so Phakoidin has specific health claims. It also is connected to the scientific external studies from accredited labs that we've been doing. So we've got various different preclinical projects, and they're going into lab projects as well, into clinical studies. So for example, our Filivre Phakoidin, We have a human trial where it's been taken in capsules by participants. It's a controlled, double-blind trial where we're looking at gut health, GI reaction and gut wellness endpoints in that study. We've also got an InfoJest protocol going on with another research organisation looking at how it affects the lactobacillus and various other strains from a positive microbiome point of view, and then making sure it doesn't increase the negative pathogens within the gut as well. So that's using human samples too, from looking at the microbiome, looking at a CACO2 cell, I work to see the bioavailability of the phycoidin as it goes through the digestive process. So all of these studies are giving us a lot of good information to take forward into further trials. But for now, it helps us, going back to your question, all of this stuff, all of this work that we've done over the last 12 to 24 months on the product, help our customers sell it and help give credibility to the customer. Because remember, we're talking about B2B customers who know what they're looking for. They have specific criteria around regulatory and the science and the data you need. And so we've got all that together now. Of course, there's further studies we've got in the roadmap and the clinical roadmap going forward for Thalivra and for other phycoidins. But all of that helps sell it and give them confidence in the product. One thing to bear in mind for all of our products is it's about formulation. So they're going to be formulated into end products. They're not just standalone products necessarily. And that formulation means it needs to have a specific shelf life, a specific stability, and then a synergy or not affect the other ingredients within the recipe.

Fed DeGobbi: I was going to ask you whether there is demand for Fucoidin supplements in health products in the market, but I guess you've already hinted to the fact that brands are not going to go out to sell Fucoidin. They're probably going to put it in a formulation that offers benefits around, say, gut health, and it will have Fucoidin in it.

Jay Dignan: that is exactly what's happening now. We're getting a lot of interest from green powder manufacturers, you know, who are looking at gut health, not only just specific strain, one or two strains, but a multitude of different strains. So prebiotic effect across different strains, prebiotic, probiotic combinations, those type of products. And yes, forcoidin is just one of many, and they're not saying this is phycoidin, this is going to be great for you. They're just saying this is gut health. The consumer really cares about that. Talking about phycoidin in particular, where we see this hitting, not only as a sort of commodity ingredient that you can put in other formulations, we see it hitting as its own unique thing. If you look at a good parallel within the market, I reference sometimes ashwagandha. This is a bioactive root extract taken from India. It's processed in India and it was virtually unknown. Like a lot of other ingredients like turmeric and other things that you would have never heard of, it was unknown before 2014 ashwagandha, really in the Western world. Whereas in India, it'd been used for centuries or even thousands of years as a health ingredient. So we really see parallels with those type of ingredients. And if you look at ashwagandha at the market where it is now, it's a 766 million market per annum, moving up to 1.9 billion per annum in 10 years. And the real key point here, and why I love paralleling it, is there's one company that have produced an ingredient called KSM-66. And that's one processor of this root extract, which has been around for thousands of years. They have 66% share of the market. So that's hundreds of millions moving up to maybe a billion revenue for this one company. And do you know what they've done? They've done exactly what we have done, which has been start with the technology as a proprietary extraction process. like we have with our paper pending process, and they have just done a lot of good science on their extracts. So that's where we see ourselves going and progressing with our product portfolio, optimised and focused on phycoidin as a bioactive ingredient for specific health applications in the market.

Fed DeGobbi: That's an interesting one because I'm almost sure, I take a greens drink in the morning and I'm almost sure they have the ashwagandha ingredient in it.

Jay Dignan: That's huge. You see it in lots of formulations and you see it as a standalone now as well. Unknown before 2014 really in the West. A hundred percent.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you see that as the two steps, like step one being incorporated into formulations heavily and then

Jay Dignan: No, the two steps to differentiate in the market to have this product and get 70% share of a market for a new innovative ingredient is to have your proprietary process. That's the key. Because as I said, the process is what affects the molecule the most, the extraction of that molecule. And then the second point is on that molecule, on that extract that you've done, that you've got yourself, your unique extract, because it's unique, because it's been extracted by your process, is do the science on your product and have a science-led approach to the product development. Those are the two steps to have a unique product, which is a defensible vote within the industry. And for our customers, that's what they're searching for. They're searching for innovative new products that have that potential to really go big and and you see it over and over again. You can talk about, I'm from New Zealand, so you can talk about manuka honey. If no one was eating manuka honey, now everyone that's got a sore throat will have a spoon of manuka honey, or lipronol, which is popular for arthritis. It's a green lip muscle, it's a species of muscles from New Zealand, where they extracted this bioactive. And this lipronol ingredient, it's a huge market for a very specific health problem. And people say that you therefore have a monopoly on a health issue as a natural solution to a health issue for people. And that's where we see Foucault in getting to. That's why we see it's got so much potential. And we're seeing that awareness starting already in the market. And yeah, I think what you were saying about the two steps, it's first a formulation, and then maybe in the future with that awareness, it'll be a standalone ingredient.

Fed DeGobbi: Okay, yes, that's what I was thinking about, but you've just made a really good point, which is all about awareness, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. It's about awareness and education. So until there is that awareness and people know about Manukaoni and Ashwagandha, then you won't be able to present it on its own.

Jay Dignan: And it's not the best business approach is to educate your customer. You normally, that's sort of not what you would want to do. You wouldn't want to educate them to buy your product because it's difficult to change habits. But in this case, it's a little bit different because the customer and the manufacturers are looking for the next big thing. In the health, in the natural health space, people are really searching, always wanting to try new things. So it's slightly different. So that education piece can go a lot faster. And then all it takes is a critical mass of people or a celebrity or something like that. I'm not saying we're waiting for that because we're not at all. It's all science-led. It has to be science-led to start with to consolidate and to keep your differentiation. So you see Irish CMOS in the US we were talking about. there's now probably hundreds of companies selling Irish sea moss. There's no differentiating factor between them. So yes, the original, you might've had first mover advantage, but there's no boat in that industry for the products. So that's why you have to be science-led and have your proprietary extraction to have this unique ingredient. And then yeah, building the awareness over time, it is difficult, but it's possible. We see the interest building for Foucauldian and awareness building very quickly and that's why we want to be there when it's built to a certain place.

Fed DeGobbi: And you see gut health as being the most interesting market trend in terms of where Foucauldian could be applied.

Jay Dignan: not only market trend, but actually just where our thalivera sits in its application. What we've seen it's good for, you know, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory capacity, but really the effect it's had on the strains that we've looked at within the microbiome has been really exciting. So that's where we've focused the efforts. We've basically followed the data because we've had a science-led approach from the start. And so following the data means that you can, you know, Our first product in our FICOIDIN portfolio will be the Thalivra product for gut health. And all of those external lab credibility that we've got from those trials help sell it and get sort of a defensible moat in the industry for our customers. So we can say this is a unique ingredient and it's got the science behind it. Therefore, no one's going to be able to copy that or replicate that.

Fed DeGobbi: So you've got Foucauldan for human supplements, but then you mentioned also a second ingredient, Reventra, which… Reventra, which is also high purity Foucauldan, which we've done for skin health, for cosmetics.

Jay Dignan: Yeah, and this is more interesting in the short term because the regulatory pressures are a lot less and the efficacy that we're getting back from our lab trials are really amazing. And when I say lab trials, I mean third-party external labs which are accredited. So we've finished these lab trials and the collagen boosting effects, the antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, UV protection, pollution protection effects that we're seeing through these trials are pretty amazing. So in the cosmetic world, it's very different from nutraceutical and food, but the product has got a lot of traction actually, so we're quite happy with it. And I think part of the reason the traction's great is you tick all the boxes from a regulatory and science point of view, and then it becomes about the story. And the story of where we're sourcing our seaweed, how we're processing it through a non-chemical approach, having a natural product, this movement in the cosmetic industry towards natural products. And, you know, these here are ingredients within cosmetics which come from natural sources without the chemicals to extract them and with the science behind them. So that's where we're focused that product. And this is available now. Brands can start using it. Yeah. Yeah. We've been at all the trade shows the last couple of years and, you know, we've got a lot of interest from the last trade shows, MPD projects in place. Orders are starting to come in from distributors, from markets that we're, we're looking at around the world and yeah, got agreements with various different distributors. So we're pretty happy with where that's placed alongside our Nutraceutical product. And then C-Fibrex as well, which is the third co-product.

Fed DeGobbi: So once you've extracted for coitin, for supplements, and for cosmetics, you have a leftover, which is?

Jay Dignan: Yeah, it's sort of, it's actually extracted first, but not that I should be giving away too much about our process, but it's effectively the, it's the fiber of the seaweed that it's retaining a lot of minerals and other nutrients. So this C-Fibrex, yeah, it's a really healthy, nutritious ingredient, which is functional. One of our big learnings in the last 12 months is you can talk about the health, the nutrition of an ingredient all day long. You can talk about the sustainability and how it's good for the environment all day long. But actually what B2B customers in particular care about, and even more so, you could argue, direct-to-consumer customers, they care about what it tastes like, what it looks like, what it smells like. So the functionality of the ingredient is really everything. And so the last 12 months we've spent a lot of effort going to research partners and doing case studies around incorporation to various different food matrices for the C-fibrics high-fibre functional food ingredient. And this has been great because we've realised that it does work in certain food matrices, but in others it doesn't so much. We've been able to really nail down the incorporation rates and that's all about how much can you incorporate of this ingredient before it starts to get too green or too smelly or taste too much of seaweed. The cool thing though about our process is basically we've been able to reduce those sensory aspects, so reduce the greenness, reduce that smell, reduce the that aftertaste you might have, which means it's a really versatile ingredient. We've put it in things like vegan meats, and meats actually as an additive, and muffins and breads and crackers, cookies, so all different types of case studies.

Fed DeGobbi: For people that might not realize what a functional ingredient is, I guess one way to look at it is when you see bagels or bread that says high in protein or high in fiber, in this case, it may be that it contains a certain amount of an ingredient that is a functional ingredient that adds fiber. And that's what you guys are doing.

Jay Dignan: Yes. So it's an additive. or a replacement. Actually, one thing that's great as well, there's also a movement to simplify recipes so it can actually take on different functions, not only the high fiber function, but actually help gelification or a methicellulose replacement, for example. So yeah, that's a super versatile ingredient. And the functionality, the taste. In fact, we've done a lot of trials where we've reduced salt, reduced fat, and that can work because of the umami flavor actually brings out other flavors. Same with sugar. So we've done reduced sugar recipes too. So in fact, it actually improves not only the texture, but the flavor in certain recipes at certain incorporation rates. So we've just found it really interesting from that point of view. And then of course, you know, the high end fiber claims on top of that, which is really what people care about. Can you put that front of front of label on the bread packet or the, or whatever you're selling?

Fed DeGobbi: What is the concept of health by stealth?

Jay Dignan: Yeah, we love health by stealth. or Stealth Health, I saw it written the other day. It seems to be picking up traction too within the market. We've had some great press across, you know, for quite an end, Seafibrex and Reventra too, but Seafibrex, the bakery industry is loving it because people are just not going to stop eating white bread or wholemeal bread. They're going to keep eating it. You can't change that. You're not going to have a bread which is seaweed bread. So we want to be able to incorporate it in bread or other products like bread without anyone knowing about it. So that gives a lot of different marketing opportunities for our customers, these food manufacturers. They could talk about that extra fibre, they could talk about just general health benefits, because it's not only fibre, it's got other minerals like iodine and things like that, which are very important in our diet and missing in our diet. It's helping save the oceans and regenerate. It's a community project because fishermen need alternative sources of income, you know, coastal erosion protection community projects. then you could talk about seaweed generally and just what it is and why it's different. So it gives this opportunity for a food manufacturer to sort of pick and choose what they're going to tell the consumer. And maybe they tell them nothing, and that's the health by stealth. And health by stealth, just to sum it up, I guess, is to hide, I don't know if hide's the right word, but hide ingredients within normal everyday food products. that are more nutritious and better for the health of the consumer. The reason a manufacturer might want to do this is because what they'll say is that they want to look after their consumer. But on top of that, of course, they're anticipating regulatory pressure from the government to say, you need to have a certain amount of fiber within your product, or you want to have a certain amount of natural products within your product. And so they're sort of anticipating the market demand at the governmental regulatory side of things. because people are also demanding more and more health benefits from their food and products which are not synthetic or better for the environment. So there's that side of it as well.

Fed DeGobbi: People want that, but to sort of answer the question, well, why not just lead with seaweed and tell people about it instead of doing it by stealth? I guess people want the health benefits, but they don't want to change their habits and they don't necessarily want to eat seaweed. Is that a fair statement?

Jay Dignan: Yeah, no, exactly. The hard thing and one of the problems we're solving for our customers is that consumers don't change their habits, especially from the sea fabrics, the food industry. So they're looking for reliable, consistent, scalable, natural solutions, which are alternatives for their customers. And the really key point is at the right price, at the right volume. So that's something I hadn't mentioned with the health by stealth. You're never going to get an ingredient into any food products unless it's cost competitive with other functional food ingredients. And this is sort of obvious to me, but so many people in these, you know, we're talking about sustainability and natural products. They just expect people will pay more for a product which is better for the world. And it's just sadly not the case. So you have to be better than and you have to be price parity or cheaper than. For us, with CFibrix, we're able to do that because it's a co-product. So this is going back to our business model, where Ficoidin washes the business's face, there's margins on just Ficoidin alone, because we're focused and optimized for that. And now this co-product is really the cream on top. So we're able to boost our margins through having these co-products, which we've had huge demand for. And it also means we can offer it at a competitive price at the right volumes, because it's a high volume co-product.

Fed DeGobbi: What's your main challenge as it relates to communicating the value of your ingredients?

Jay Dignan: I think it's that same challenge that a consumer, as you just said, is not just going to suddenly start eating seaweed. People, I think, do still hear the word seaweed and think, you know, that's that bright brown slimy thing in the ocean. So there's a little bit of that. And then, you know, because for Seafibrex, and we're talking about the food industry and Seafibrex here, I think the food industry is made up of large players, big corporates that take a long time to change their ways. So you have to really spend a lot of time and effort convincing them that this is a better product. It is scalable. We can produce it the volumes you need and the right price. And it does do what we say it will do. And we've proven it to do with our case studies and our lab trials and our scale-up trials with our downstream partners as well, which we've done for bread, muffins and various other things. So I think there's still a little bit of hesitation around that. And when people research seaweed, they'll say, oh, but your biomass is maybe a little bit variable, or you can't rely on it every year. And this is where I have to explain, well, we want, you know, for the sea fabrics, we're producing for sustainable harvesters, but they do have a reliable, consistent supply, and we can really standardize the quality of our products through our process. I think that's the biggest challenge.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah. And it doesn't cost more.

Jay Dignan: It doesn't cost more at the right volume. I mean, at the end of the day, that's overarching. That's what they care about.

Fed DeGobbi: I just want to talk about hiring. It's not something we talk about a lot. And because you mentioned your team earlier, but you also said that you needed these skills that to me, when you were talking earlier, I thought, well, those could be pretty niche skills. So I wanted to ask you, was it difficult to find the people you needed? perhaps within your geographical area and to join a startup as well, which comes with a certain amount of uncertainty and pressure.

Jay Dignan: I took a lot of time actually creating the team, building the team, because I did want to do, to find the right people to join. And so I didn't rush into it. It was difficult because I had a very clear set of criteria for how the team should be made up. We needed someone that knew about seaweed, we needed someone that could scale processing, we needed someone that knew about regulatory and product development. So I think it sort of happened naturally as we went through the first sort of six months. But because I was so involved in the industry from doing my dissertation and working, I actually worked through the dissertation I didn't mention on a seaweed farm in the Isle of Mull. And so I met a lot of people that were really involved within seaweed. So it happened naturally, but it happened from going to a lot of events. telling people about what Biomara was and what the plan was. And then through those conversations, for example, the hiring of our head of R&D was from talking to a university about a potential research project together. another seaweed company, and this is maybe a longer story, but it basically went under, and I was able to get one of their top employees from that seaweed company, alongside the phycology experience we already had, but more experience of commercializing seaweed as a food ingredient. So it was really lucky, you could say. But I think what I bring it back to is just taking your time and hiring, waiting and putting the word out there, meeting a lot of people and being patient and finding the right people to start with. Because that founding team, I call it the founding team, effectively. And that's what we are. And we've been able to build and stay the same team with the same sort of roles, work really well together. But taking your time and choosing the right people for that is, of course, super key.

Fed DeGobbi: Is the founding team together in the same location or are you guys spread out and work remotely?

Jay Dignan: Yeah, we're all around Edinburgh. And we do have a small office space, but basically that's where the lab is. We hire a space from the University of Edinburgh, so it's really central, a great space. And they're all spending time in the lab. Sometimes they say, Jay, just don't come to the lab because you'll get in our way. Stay out of it. I mean, when we just set the lab up, I turned up one day in shorts because it was a hot day and they're like, what? What are you doing? I mean, you're not allowed to wear shorts in a lab. No one told me that. Oh, you learn, you know. So yeah, live and learn. And yeah, so that's sort of the base of operations, the lab. That's where we scale, you know, do the benchtop scale before we go scale up.

Fed DeGobbi: Jay, what's an important thing that we forgot to talk about that you think we should cover before we wrap this up?

Jay Dignan: What I'd like to do is just maybe make a sort of closing call to action, which is to any potential food companies, nutraceutical companies that are looking for natural, innovative ingredients for their formulations or for their recipes, and to say that, you know, seaweed's not what you think it is. And especially when it's been processed and had that value add to it, I think you could It could be worth a conversation with us and looking at our different products to see how we could work together for new products, which can improve the health of your customers as well as the health of the planet.

Fed DeGobbi: And for people wanting to reach out, where can they find you, Biomara?

Jay Dignan: Probably our website is the best place or LinkedIn. We have both contact forms on both of those places. So yeah, or to me personally through LinkedIn is best.

Fed DeGobbi: Jay, thanks so much for taking the time. You know, the use of ocean ingredients in human health is a topic that I'm really passionate, personally, very passionate about. And yeah, it's been so great to talk to you. I think we've done a good job and, you know, credit to you to sort of make it approachable.

Jay Dignan: Yeah, hopefully I've done an okay job at explaining, you know, especially our target molecule for koidin, what it does, how it works, its benefits, because really for us that's the key to it all, optimising for that and our technology. So yeah, we're keeping the magic within that molecule and within seaweeds and the seaweed industry to boost the seaweed industry and build the demand for seaweed.

Fed DeGobbi: For anybody that does want to go into the detail, into the research and really nail down on phycoidins, would you recommend any resource, any website, any book, anything in particular that people can use?

Jay Dignan: I would say first protocol is our website, looking at our products and what the benefits of our products are from the phycoidins that we extract. We're actually in the process, in the next week or so, we'll be putting out a white paper, which is basically talking about phycoidin and trying to build that awareness of what phycoidin is, and then of course talking about how we're extracting, because that affects the phycoidin molecule a lot. Otherwise, yeah, it's a little bit difficult. You know, there's a lot of scientific literature out there. It's really the only place I would say you can go. And that's the problem with that though, it's a bit of a minefield. You have so many different species and from an application point of view, it's very difficult to narrow down what's out there in the scientific literature. But yeah, we've got a nice paper out there authored by our team and Matthew Chadwick as well, who's our PhD student, we sponsor. I think that that could be a good first port of call. I can give you the link to that if you want. Absolutely. Yeah.

Fed DeGobbi: We'll put that in the show notes. That'd be great. Yeah. Thank you, Jay. Thanks so much. All right. Cheers.