Ocean Made Seaweed Pots founder Emily Power

https://oceanmade.co/

What if the pot you use to plant in will actually nourish your plants and flowers? 

Why are we using plastic for this when it could be a product that provides value to the soil? 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.

This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

Cory Connors: 0:00

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors,

Brodie Vander Dussen: 0:03

and I'm Brodie Vander Dussen

Cory Connors: 0:05

we have an exciting guest today that, Brody has found, one of the leaders in the sustainability space. She's an impressive, founder of a company called Ocean Made. We've got Emily Power. Welcome to the show.

Emily Power: 0:18

Thank you. It's so great to be here with both of you. for having me.

Cory Connors: 0:22

Of

Brodie Vander Dussen: 0:22

course. we're excited about this one. I think, I found you on LinkedIn. We love LinkedIn over here, the sustainable packaging podcast. and I saw, I've been, for those who know me or have listened to the podcast before, I'm obsessed with seaweed packaging. I think there's so much to be done with it. I think we're just watching innovation. It's beginning stages and I'm just so excited about it. So when I saw on LinkedIn that you, had this really cool new product out, based in a seaweed material, I jumped. And I was like so excited to talk to you and learn a little bit more about what you're doing. And so maybe let me. Pause there and take a step back. My excitement is going to get ahead of me. Can you share a little bit about your background and how it led to this innovation?

Emily Power: 1:14

Yeah, absolutely. so my background is actually advertising and sales and has nothing to do with seaweed or biology or chemistry or manufacturing, but I, I have been a lifelong gardener. my mom, was a professional gardener and my grandpa had a little farm in Michigan. And so gardening has always been like a passion of mine. And I actually, I started You know, my professional experience thinking I wanted to be a marine biologist, so I had an internship at the Seattle Aquarium when I was in college, and I quickly learned how much math was involved with that, and it wasn't all, being out on a boat and seeing wildlife. that was, 10 percent of the time, but I really just fell in love with the ocean and everything that it has and represents. And the Seattle Aquarium did such a great job of inspiring a desire to conserve and regenerate our oceans. And so that had always stuck with me. I think sales and advertising was more meeting my professional, Skill set, but, I worked at Microsoft for almost 10 years, and I think it was about eight years ago. I watched a 60 minutes with Bren Smith on seaweed farming, and he basically said, if you had 20, 000. And a boat, you could have a seaweed farm and here all the reasons that you should have a seaweed farm from a sustainability perspective, how well it sequesters carbon, what it can do to help us fight climate change, how it builds these ecosystems for animals out in the ocean. And basically, there are, like, no downsides to seaweed farming, and you should have a seaweed farm. and so that's how this adventure started. But, it, it turns out it's a little bit harder than Bren shared, and especially here in Washington, we really don't have a seaweed industry, like many states across the United States do, and the United States actually, I think, represents less than 0. 2 percent of all of the, commercially harvested seaweed across the world, and so it's really a budding industry around here, but I found it Fascinating. and ever since that 60 minutes, I think I was just really hooked on the idea of seaweed and trying to incorporate it in my life in any way that I could. I was using it out in my garden as a fertilizer. I use it in my skincare and hair care. and I just like really have always wanted to support the seaweed industry in any way I can. And, I think for a long time, Seaweed was the key and I was walking around and looking for the door to open and how I could, utilize this to get other people inspired by seaweed. and then one day the idea for kelp pots just popped into my head.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 3:42

Well, that's amazing. I feel like I've seen a rise for sure, not only in packaging, but then also. On the shelf, of algae or kelp or seaweed. So I think that's amazing. I had no idea that it's less than you said, 0.2%.

Emily Power: 3:57

Yeah. It might be a little bit more than that now. I think seaweed really is starting to catch on in the United States, but it's, I definitely think it's under 1% still of all of the wow. Harvested seaweed in the world.

Cory Connors: 4:07

Lots of potential. Sounds like Absolutely. We've had several other seaweed based packaging companies on the podcast and Brody's right. This is seems to be a huge part of a sustainable packaging future. we would like, first of all, you're from Seattle. I didn't know that fellow Northwestern or I knew I'd like to immediately. I'm from Portland. Will you be at the sustainable packaging coalition event there in Seattle?

Emily Power: 4:36

no, we actually have something else going on, but if things change, I will come. I have another, previous engagement.

Cory Connors: 4:44

Oh, well, let's talk about this, company that you've started. What kind of challenges, did you face when you were beginning the process and where are you at now in the process of development?

Emily Power: 4:57

Yeah, let's see that the challenges I faced probably in developing a biodegradable gardening pot that's made from seaweed and other fibers is the fact that I didn't know how to do any of that. so I would say that's the biggest challenge that I ran into and it was really about, Finding the answers to things and doing a lot of research and making sure, hey, when I thought of this idea, it clicked in my head and seemed It should have already existed. And so I spent a lot of time figuring out if it did exist. And if I was infringing on anybody's innovations, and It seemed like it wasn't. And I spent a ton of time just networking and cold calling my way to resources that might be able to help me. And it's such a niche thing that I'm looking into that it was really difficult to find those answers. so I would say that was definitely a big challenge that. required a big time investment before being able to, move forward. and then when we finally did find the right people and got the right answers, I would say the other challenge is really that seaweed is amazing, but it's also extremely potent in its raw form and really expensive to use the raw material, especially as a dried form. So finding the right form and formula to make this work where we could have the right materials to create the structural integrity in areas that seaweed wasn't capable of doing that while still retaining the bioactive properties and the binding agents that seaweed has, to combine those things together to create this gardening pot that I have, and I'm holding 1 of these up as a sample of 1 of our early prototypes, And I would say, so in terms of where we are, in the process right now, we have, created our prototypes. We then moved into MVPs that we then tested. And those early tests and experiments, absolutely exceeded all of my expectations. And so we actually have come to market. With our MVP product, and right now we just, we just held our presale kind of as a traction point to get a sense of, is this a product that people even want before we move into mass manufacturing or investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into really intense R& D and testing all of these different things that we want to look into? Do people even want it? And so we held our presale in January and we sold out of all of our presale inventory in less than two weeks. Wow. So it was a successful, test and trial and now we are moving full steam ahead into developing different versions of this, getting feedback from customers on how it works and how we can improve it, and exploring commercial uses. And I don't know, it just feels if the MVP was the floor, I don't even see the ceiling.

Cory Connors: 7:32

what does that mean? MVP?

Emily Power: 7:34

you are most, minimum viable product.

Cory Connors: 7:37

Oh, okay. Okay. Not most valuable player.

Emily Power: 7:40

Sorry. Yeah. No, Cause that didn't make sense to me. Turns out for me, they turned to be, they're one in the same.

Cory Connors: 7:46

That's great. Well, congratulations on a successful launch. Well done.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 7:50

Thank you. It was really exciting. that's amazing. I think, it's always scary to put that pilot out, but, exciting to see the feedback from that. right now, talk to me a little bit about what you, what the current product is, what are the use cases, what is, you said a gardening pot. Is that all that it can do? packaging is, comes in many shapes, forms, sizes, colors, Tell me a little bit more about this kelp pot.

Emily Power: 8:15

so the kelp pot is a plantable and biodegradable seed starter specifically designed for gardeners who are starting a plant from a seed or a propagation that needs some protection and some, some early nutrients to make sure that the roots can establish themselves and the plant can thrive. And the purpose of this is really designed to be transplanted outside into your garden bed. So that the roots can grow through the container wall, it reduces the transplant shock that your plant typically experiences when it's being transplanted outside. And as it breaks down, it continues to release our formula of seaweed nutrients to help improve the soil quality and increase the plant survivability rate and increase the yield of the fruit or the flower that comes off of the plant. The plan, and this is the specific use case right now. And I totally recognize packaging comes in all shapes and sizes. And the thing that I'm most excited about. For this, I've listened and watched your podcast before and you've so many great innovators that come on that are selling packaging to companies who then package their product in that. But this is also a retail product that people can go and go to our website and buy right now. It's a package for your plants and, I feel like there are so many opportunities for where we could go with seaweed packaging, but I'm most excited about the bioactive component of this, where it has a double use. Yes, it's a crib for your plants. if we take an analogy of humans, you start off in a crib, you're really protected, but like people, plants all have our own different needs. And so for humans, we try and give our children the most successful head start in life by providing them. all of the optimal things that they need, and I believe that we should be doing that for plants as well, and I just happen to believe that seaweed is the answer to do that.

Cory Connors: 10:04

Yeah, it gives a whole new meaning to cradle, right? This is really great. Yeah,

Emily Power: 10:08

absolutely. We talk about from seabed to seedbed.

Cory Connors: 10:11

My wife grew up on a farm in Oregon. And so we like to grow our own fruits and vegetables here in, in Oregon. And, I think we'll definitely be a customer of yours. I would like to talk a little bit about, how this compares as a life cycle analysis to the plastic version. we've all seen those black pots that starters and small plants come in. have you done some analysis of that? I'm assuming it's a dramatic improvement.

Emily Power: 10:42

In terms of the life cycle, I would say, well, first, this is designed to break down really quickly, whereas plastic pots aren't. And, I would say that was the, really the inspiration for kelp pots was sitting out in the garden and transplanting some of my plants and realizing I'm doing that from a plastic container and I'm using a tool that is plastic. Plastic and metal, and the bag that the soil came in is plastic, and the label that I'm using to tell you what kind of plant it is made from plastic, and, that was really frustrating to know that, like, all of these things were going to live for a really long time, and everything else is designed to break down in a growing cycle, right? and in terms of a life cycle, this does disappear really quickly. In fact, I, in the early experiments that we did in our garden, I was really excited to see that they broke down within less than two months of planting them in the ground. Granted, I think it's important to note that every soil structure is different based off of the environment that you're in or the zone that you're in. And so the period of time that it will take to break down in your soil depends on the pH level, the zone that you're in, the temperature, those kinds of things, the time of year. All of that. but I will say in our early tests, we also compared it against compostable or biodegradable or other plantable, gardening pots against peat moss and cocoa choir and, like recycled paper, some of the DIY things that people would make and it absolutely held up longer than the paper versions of things from a structural integrity standpoint when you know, you're first putting your seeds in there. but it also broke down so much faster than cocoa choir or peat moss, which is really what you want, because if you're planting this in the ground, you don't want your roots to be stuck and strangled. Or prohibited by that container. What you want is for your roots to be able to spread far, wide, and deep to establish growth really well. And our pot is designed to really help plants do that.

Cory Connors: 12:39

That's great. My understanding is most of the black plastic versions of these don't get recycled. is that your understanding as well?

Emily Power: 12:47

Absolutely. Many of them can't be recycled, and even the ones that can be recycled often aren't. I'm sure you've talked to quite a few people on here about the limitations of recycling. Even when you do all the best things that you can possibly do as a consumer, and you're separating your recycling, less than 7 percent of that gets recycled regardless. So it is great knowing that for every One of these pots that's purchased, we are diverting a plastic pot from going into a landfill and we're also supporting the seaweed industry at the same time. So it has that double impact of, sequestering carbon, capturing that carbon and sinking that carbon back into the ground, but then also not leveraging Any plastic that has to go into a waste stream. And I would also say against peat pots, I have, I've used them in the past and I'm just not a fan, especially when you think about the environmental or ecological impacts that it has when you're harvesting peat from our peat lands and disturbing that really pulls a lot of carbon into our atmosphere. And yeah, I'm just really excited about how sustainable this product really is. And, From an environmental standpoint and from a performance standpoint, because I recognize that if we're going to be able, if we're going to replace plastic, it has to be perfect. And a lot of the biopods that I've used in the past didn't even come close to competing with plastic. And so I recognize there's still a far road to go to make something fully comparable to plastic, but that's the ultimate goal is to replace all plastic and gardening with something like a kelp pot.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 14:21

I think, especially because if gardening is. of the earth were, regenerative in so many ways. I think a lot of the plastics, even the bioplastics that I've seen, a lot don't really contribute to that regenerative. and I think that's the goal, right, is like to be more sustainable, do less harm, do more good, but it needs to be part of that circular, fits it all together, and I think, this is a really great solution that, that encompasses a lot of that, and I really feel like regenerative is something that you could attribute to this product. I'm curious, what's next for Ocean Maid? this is a, it sounds like you guys had a really successful pilot in January. what comes after this? Is there any plans to branch into more than just gardening pots or any sort of other packaging? Because my wheels are turning of opportunities here.

Emily Power: 15:16

Yeah, absolutely. there are definitely possibilities of expanding beyond gardening. And in fact, we still need to come up with some packaging solutions for our own product. But right now, I think the thing that really excites me is this bioactive component that we can leverage and integrate into the packaging. And, in terms of what's next for us, it's developing more sizes, more formulas for more applications. We're really looking to scale to commercial uses and applications where we can tailor specific, specific formulas to solve unique growing challenges. For example, we're looking at cannabis cultivation. How can we, adjust the pot formula to increase the yield of that flower or reforestation? For example, growing up in the Pacific Northwest, it's a big logging area, and we definitely don't replace all of the trees that we cut down on a one to one basis. And for all of the trees that we do transplant or replant, those don't have 100 percent survivability rate, you don't have somebody that can sit there and monitor them and make sure that they're, getting watered evenly or being able to survive the cold weather. And so being able to develop a formula that could increase the survivability rate of trees or plants in drought stricken areas. Leveraging the alginate in seaweed and all of the nutrients that it does have and tailoring it specifically to different crops to really help more people around the world grow more successfully, and more confidently.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 16:47

I love that. A big goal, but I think we need more people aiming for that in order to get there.

Emily Power: 16:53

Yeah, absolutely. I think everyone should know how to grow things. and it's such a rewarding experience and it also just gives me a lot of security in knowing that I can grow my own food. But as we run out of land space, it's really difficult for everybody to have the capability to do that. And so being able to leverage kelp pots in a small garden bed and potentially have a pot that. Is designed for your tomatoes versus your peas and be able to maximize the yield and space that you do have in a limited capacity or be able to help regenerative farmers overturn their crops and replenish the nutrients in that soil faster. I'm really excited about the possibilities of where kelp pots and ocean made can go. That's

Brodie Vander Dussen: 17:34

awesome. I'm very

Cory Connors: 17:34

excited. Yeah.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 17:36

So how do people get in contact with you? How do people, you said, order on your site, what's, if I'm a gardener, what am I, how do I get started?

Emily Power: 17:45

Well, you can visit our website at www. oceanmaid. co. Or we also have the domain name kelppots. com. So you can visit either one of those places to check out more about OceanMaid and Kelp Pots. Or you can also always reach out to me on LinkedIn. Like you guys mentioned in the beginning, it is such a valuable tool and resource and I have made so many connections in the sustainable packaging industry as well as, the seaweed industry and gardening industry there. So I, I love connecting. With gardeners and seaweed nerds and people who are really focused on, creating a greener planet. So feel free to reach out to me about anything there. That's great.

Cory Connors: 18:26

Thank you so much, Emily. It's been great to have you on. Congratulations on your early success and we wish you all the best in the future.

Emily Power: 18:32

Thank you both so much. It's such a pleasure to be here.