175. Seaweed Is the New Oil: Mari Granström Builds Origin by Ocean

Mari We started to build the modern society on oil. So suddenly we refined it to chemicals, to fuel and what have you. But what we did with the seaweed, we, we were just eating it. Like we couldn't figure anything else out.

Erum Hey, Carl, how's it going?

Karl Things are going great. How about you Iam? What's going on?

Erum Oh, Just enjoying life. I know you have been and exploring different worlds of podcasts besides our own. Tell us about what's been going on?

Karl So last night I went to go see, chakra Ante of Hidden Brain, who's been on the air for 10 years and he was doing a live event at New York City's Town Hall.

Karl It was super well attended. It was really interesting to see the face behind the voice. It wasn't recorded, so it's not like a live podcast recording, like what you had gone to, earlier in the year when you saw the Pivot Podcast live. and so [00:01:00] Chakra is doing this tour where he is going to different cities and he's talking about things that he's learned from doing Hidden Brain for 10 years.

Karl And, he basically does it's like a long segment where he is talking about seven. social science skills for us to consider. And then in the middle of it, he, stops and takes a break. But he also tells us to talk to the strangers that are around us. Oh, and I should say, he asks us to all turn off our phones until the end, which most people did.

Karl And so then, you know, I ended up talking to these two women who were sitting to my right. Well, Kristen, who is to my left, ended up talking to people who were behind her. And, we talked about what brought you Joy recently because he had said, don't ask them what they do. Don't ask them what they're from.

Karl Um, but then it turned out that one of the women who I was next to her husband or ex-husband had been, biopharma investors. So when I talked about our podcast, she knew exactly [00:02:00] what I was talking about. So it it was interesting.

Erum Oh, did you get their name?

Karl the women's names? Yes. It was, Virginia and Marley.

Erum And what about the husband?

Karl I did not get his name.

Karl Um, we didn't get that personal, but I did learn, you know, like they both have kids. Like the woman who was next to me, the biggest joy she recently had was that she sat down with her 10-year-old son and they read a book together.

Karl so you learn these kinds of things. And it's always interesting to talk to strangers, particularly when you don't start with what do you do, which is the default, particularly in New York.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. A BN. Always be networking.

Karl Exactly. And so we're both getting ready to travel. I'm gonna be going to Panama again, and you're gonna be traveling to, I think my favorite part is Spain. What are you gonna do?

Erum Yes, I'm going to the Basque country, just to relax. It's, spring break, for, my son. So the New York schools have, spring break and I'm like, [00:03:00] all right, let's just go, let's go to Spain.

Erum I know you talked about, your experiences going to the Basque country. You went last year?

Karl I went last year and then I went a few years before during the pandemic to speak at a food tech conference.

Erum Yeah, and it's just like, it kind of encapsulates what we like to do, during our vacations, obviously just eating is a big thing, so the pincho bars and eating small little plates all day long, you know, so it's like perfect.

Erum And just being near the water, although it's not gonna be super warm. and just enjoying life and checking out Spain. why are you gonna Panama?

Karl You know, my family's Panamanian and for a long time I hadn't gone, and now I'm gonna take my son, Felix, who's gonna be on spring break, and he and I are gonna go down there together to take a break.

Karl But I'll be working from down there for a couple days as well.

Erum Oh, okay. All right. Well, you'll be working. I'm gonna try not to work, but you know, when you do what you love, you're always working. So we always still text each other when we're on vacation and just wanna stay on top of [00:04:00] things, wanna make sure we're there for our clients, there for our friends, and have our finger on the pulse of what's going on in biotech.

Erum 'cause that's what this podcast is about. By the way, if you're new to the podcast.

Karl Yeah, so let's rewind a couple weeks because we didn't get to talk about this. You had mentioned this Pfizer ad that played during the Oscars, and we'll put a link to it. Why did you want to talk about it,

Erum It was so emotional and At messaging lab, our day-to-day work, the company that we work at, that puts food on our table. And, we have clients that are, in the biopharma space and we always help them with, comms and, presenting themselves. And one of the things we try to do is always break through the noise.

Erum And in the world of pharma, if you think of a pharma ad, they're all the same, right? Just like people that are happy, just in their backyard grilling and just doing life things, and then you just rattle off all the, side effects and they do all the disclaimers towards the end of the commercial.

Erum So when you think of a pharma ad, you're kind of like, eh, boring, whatever. [00:05:00] This Pfizer ad blew me away. There was this motivational speech that was playing and it sounded like it's like a coach coaching. His team, but the visuals were such a nice balance of scientific and humanity. And it just cut from being in the lab to someone who's exercising or they're at a hospital and they're running down the hallway trying to get somewhere.

Erum 'cause there's an urgent thing happening and it just like, so it's a fast paced and it. right here, right now by Fat Boy Slim Playing the Background, which is a great song. It's just such a wonderful, song of like, aspiration and your like motivation and just really like pulled on the heartstrings.

Erum Got me excited about Pfizer. And also towards the end it had like some of the breakthroughs that were happening, on the cancer front, what that Pfizer's been working on, and it just super well executed and I'm like this. Is the new [00:06:00] standard for pharma ads. I hope. we can all take a page out of this and.

Erum Do better when it comes to advocating for what's going on in the pharma industry. All the good things that are happening. There's some bad things happen sometimes, but there's a lot of great things happening, so kudos to whoever Pfizer worked with to do that ad and the fact that they took that leap and broke the mold of pharma ads.

Erum What'd you think? You, you just watched it?

Karl be interesting to see. I love watching the winners of the annual, pharmaceutical industry. advertisers, there is a whole subset of advertising that focuses on pharma, and they do have award ceremonies, and I like watching the ads once a year.

Karl It's kind of like the Oscars of. Pharmaceutical advertising and I think this one, it should be a front runner just 'cause it is very motivational. It's not about a specific disease, which so many ads are a drug for a disease that you ask yourself if you have it. This one doesn't have that. It's really about breakthroughs.

Karl It's about being motivated to make it through an illness like cancer. And, [00:07:00] just super nice, I mean, I love the. scenes that are kind of like from the pit, in the hospital, and the people who are being confronted, with a cancer diagnosis and making it through. So it checks all the boxes, as far as I'm concerned.

Karl Really super powerful. Recommend you watch it if you're interested in, the cutting edge of pharmaceutical advertising. and like we said, we'll put that link in the show notes.

Erum Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, just the strength, the motivation.

Erum okay, if you wanna know the cutting edge of pharma advertising, but if you just wanna know the cutting edge of any advertising, if you just wanna get motivated and feel hopeful. This is a ad for you to watch.

Karl Yeah. It's a big contrast to the brilliant Anthropic ads that are about advertising infiltrating ai, which were also, we've talked about 'em, but they were also a big part of the Super Bowl.

Karl But those are worth watching on YouTube because you can actually see the whole ad. I think the Super Bowl ones were very much truncated, so you didn't see the whole thing, and you also didn't get the sense of the discomfort. [00:08:00] Confronting an AI in the form of another person. So, let's kind of move from, AI and advertising back to the real world.

Karl you recently went to an event, IAM, I don't know if you want to talk about that or, give us a highlight of the event you just went to.

Erum Oh yeah. I mean this is an event that has been happening monthly in New York City for quite some time. It's called the Echo Event. and it brings together biotech professionals across the spectrum, so people in the lab, people working in business, and all the service providers and students that are about to join the industry and.

Erum Looking to connect and network, and it was a great time. you get to see friends that you've known for many years, and then meet some new people and just to see how they connect. And I know this group well and the organizers and anytime someone talks about, AI and bio or going beyond biopharma, they bring that person to me.

Erum So like, they always, I always get like introduced to so many incredible people. and it's great. Like, I always walk out of there with [00:09:00] like. 10 to 15 new introductions. So it's a great way to like increase the network, meet people. I just love it. Again, great thing to do, easy for us living in New York City.

Erum just hop on the train and all of a sudden you're meeting, 50 people, in the industry and all doing very unique things. and I just wanna congratulate the team at Echo Biotech. we should put a link in the show notes, to connect with them because if you're in New York City and they're having to have an event, I just highly recommend attending.

Erum but it is a great time. I know you've been going to those events as well.

Karl Someone had just asked us what it's like to do biotech in New York City, and one of the things that I think we answered was, what's great about biotech in New York City is.

Karl It's not just one thing. it's like you've got the biomaterials community, you've got the de-centralized science community, you've got the hardcore biopharma community, and then that could be broken into the different therapeutic communities. and then you've got the venture or the investment community that is focused on the [00:10:00] biopharmaceutical industry and also the bioindustrial industry.

Karl So you have. All these separate networks that interlock at different places. So for people like us who do go out and go to these events, we do occasionally see a lot of the same people. But then it's always great to meet new people who maybe don't know someone in the dsci or the AI drug discovery part of the ecosystem.

Karl So it's a really wonderful, ecosystem overall, and I'm really happy that we're a part of it.

Erum Yeah. I mean, we try to bring them all together, right? I try to invite the people in the pharma world to come into the world of bio industrials and say, look, here's another. Option for your skills, right? a lot of people I work in biopharma, they're like, okay, I'm gonna raise a whole bunch of money, and make a drug and, go through that, long haul procedure or of getting, to market somehow.

Erum but they can also use their talents for the world of bio industrials, which, oftentimes has a speedier route. To revenue, or growth. So anyway, yeah, we like to be the glue that kind of connects it all together and [00:11:00] that's why we talk about biotech and growing everything because it really helps bring a very clear narrative about how biotech is changing every industry and, how they all interconnect and that the common ground is life, DNA, and how it evolves and grows.

Karl Yeah. And so a couple weeks ago we interviewed Kevin Webb of Superorganism, and Kevin talked about how nature is undervalued. We really don't understand what the value of all the nature that surrounds us is and how much, prosperity our understanding in our, Leveraging nature has given us, when you think about it, whether it's the trees we've chopped down for fuel or to build houses, or, the microbes that we've used to develop medicines, all of that is very much undervalued.

Karl Today. We're going back to the natural world and we're gonna be talking to Mary. Strom of, origin by Ocean Iam. You met Mari at IRL in real life. Why don't you talk about how you [00:12:00] met her and give the background before we start the interview?

Erum Yeah. I met Mari at New Lab during Climate Week. New lab was doing this series called Critical Mass. and so we were both there and we got to talking because a lot of times at Climate Week you meet a lot of people in, the energy world, like renewable energies or recycling or things like that. And when she introduced herself to me and she's working in the world biology, I was like, oh, I also work in biology and we just kindred spirits.

Erum We clicked, we sat next to each other during the sessions and we had so much fun. and just. Wait, you guys hear from her and I'm gonna give you a quick background of Mari so you guys can get a little comfortable. Mari Grants Room is the founder and chief executive activist.

Erum There we go. And now that gives you a hint of how awesome she is. she's a chief executive activist of Origin By Ocean, a company dedicated to transforming invasive allergies such as sargassum into bio-based and biodegradable chemicals to replace oil-based products. With a background as an [00:13:00] industrial chemist and environmentalist, Dr.

Erum Strom is on a mission to transform our approach to oceans and their ecosystems through regenerative value chain that benefits both environment and the economy. So lots of talk about so much convergence happening, and let's let our interview with Mari Grand, take it away. Awesome.

Erum Mari Grandstream, welcome to the Grow Everything podcast. We're so excited to have you on.

Mari Thank you. I'm super excited to be here.

Erum Yes, because you and I met at New Lab during Climate Week last year, and we became Instant Buddies in a sea of like clean tech.

Mari We did indeed. It was, really, really great to meet you and it was very nice to have a first chat about, just biochemistry and, all kind of things, what we are working on.

Mari So I'm very happy to continue from that.

Erum Yeah. Yeah, because. we have a lot in common, so we both studied chemistry, you [00:14:00] organic, I was forensic chemistry. you also have had this incredible career where you looked at chemistry and then you were making different products for these large companies that worked at BASF and these other organizations.

Erum and then, you know, in this world. ocean restoration and entrepreneurship and this, it's just a fascinating background. Can you just talk to us a little bit about what first sparked your curiosity about biomaterials and bio-refinery concepts and how did that eventually lead you to founding Origin by Ocean?

Mari Yeah, absolutely. I think I'm very, untypical chemist, because already during my PhD I was working on the biomaterials and biochemicals. So normally organic chemists, we tend to work with the oil-based chemistry a lot. And I'm actually rare species because I'm never done that. So after my studies, I really focused on the biochemical side.

Mari So for me it's always been part of me, part of my chemistry and how I work within the industry as well. And that's why in a big corporations, I was always hired as an [00:15:00] expert to build the future of that particular company in a biochemical field. And, working in a corporations, working on the, bio-based material site and looking at the future, that also means that you have to turn quite a lot of stones to find biomass, which is truly sustainable at scale.

Mari So the chemical industry there is good and bad when you look at the scale because when you go up in a scale, most of the biomass sources are definitely not sustainable anymore. So that was always something that was following me as a thought what is the source of the truly sustainable material that we can find from this planet?

Mari I'm also a scuba diver. So what happened to me was that I was diving in a one location quite frequently and I started to see that there was this weird type of appearance of seaweed blooms. And then I started to think that, okay, so this thingis happening. Maybe this is the future biomass that we can use because there will [00:16:00] be a lot of it during the eutrophication.

Mari We're gonna discuss that later on. So just putting the mouthful out there, that there is such a word of eutrophication and that was something we was triggering this kind of a thinking that, okay, so how do we build materials and biochemicals from this biomass? what does it actually contain? And this is how the whole thing started.

Karl let's talk about eutrofication.

Lizette Hey guys. Okay, let's break down eutrofication. That's when excess nutrients, like nitrogen and phosphorus build up in water systems. Those nutrients feed algae, which rapidly grow and form massive blooms. The problem is when that algae dies, it depletes oxygen in the water and that can suffocate entire ecosystems.

Lizette Too many nutrients, not enough balance.

Karl When I hear that word, I immediately think like, red tide, huge algae blooms. It means [00:17:00] there's a lot of excess nutrients in the water, which in turn forces the algae to grow. You didn't see that as. Like you said, environmental crisis. You saw it as a potential resource.

Karl Can you talk about the exact moment where you saw these algae blooms as being a feedstock for a new kind of industry?

Mari It actually, it's a very good question, actually started from my childhood. coming from Finland, we are living next to the most polluted sea in the world. No one knows, but that's the reality.

Karl Wow.

Mari Yep. And, I'm not doing very good promotion now for Finland, but here we go. That's the, that's the reality. So I grew up next to this sea and I saw that what the eutrophication actually meant. So every summer we had a cyanobacteria blooms and some of the cyanobacteria species are very toxic, right?

Mari So that was something that every year we read in the newspapers, okay, is this gonna be a bad or good? blue green alle year and all of that. Of course, at the [00:18:00] time I was not thinking that this is a great source of biomass, but I kind of knew that, this is what we have.

Mari But it really started from my scuba diving. hobbies. I was obsessed diving everywhere, you know, wherever there was a, opportunity to die. I was diving and it really started from there that I started to see that biomass. And that was, of course, very much linked to the fact that I was working in that field, trying to find this holy crail of crate biomass for the.

Mari Chemical industry. And this is where we really, really started that. I started to see that, you even in the oceans, not just the Baltic sea next to me, but in the oceans around the world, globally, we are seeing the same problem, different species, same story. And this is how it really started.

Mari And I started to, as a chemist, you're always interested in see the molecules inside, whatever that is. And in this case, seaweed. and then I started to build the idea from there also from the market. What could we produce and how do we do it?

Erum Yeah. Wow. that's so global [00:19:00] problem, but can you help us visualize, a little bit more about the scale, the locations in particular?

Erum What types of different, algae blooms or seaweeds are you seeing? Can you just, based on your research and what you've learned, Can you give us a picture of how big this problem is and like how diverse it is?

Mari Yeah, absolutely. so for example, aari s we are focused on sargassum, seaweed.

Mari So we have between 40 to 60 million tons of sargassum blooming every single year. The Caribbean. Yeah. Gulf of Mexico. And in the US

Erum Gulf of America. Sorry, just to

Mari correct you. Sorry. Of Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm European and I'm very sorry. I'm

Erum okay.

Mari I can't follow the developments you guys have.

Mari Don't worry. So yeah, Gulf of America, that's, I love it. That's so, yeah. So this is where it sits and there is a lot of it. I actually remember reading the [00:20:00] UN report years back. I mean, maybe we are talking like 12 to 15 years ago. They were writing about sargassum. They said that this might become the next huge environmental problem, of this world.

Mari And so it happened. But of course, being human beings when you read something is like, well, it's a un report. It's never gonna happen. Right? but now we see it. Year after year, it gets more and more intense. the blooming period gets, uh, longer and longer. It starts earlier, finishes, later.

Mari So this is really something that, I started to see already 10, 12 years ago. And that was something that I think, okay, Sargassum is something that we have to start from because we know where it is. They need to harvest it anyway because there is so much of it. So it's a great opportunity to tap in if you like, that we are just gonna buy it and do something useful out of it.

Karl And it's not just a Gulf of America problem because I grew up in [00:21:00] California and it's a California problem as well. Do you see, I mean you also mentioned in the Baltic being one of the most polluted seas in the world. Do you see it there as well?

Mari No, we don't. Baltic Sea is very different type of ecosystem because it's prish water, so we don't actually have the salt concentration, what you guys have in the, I call it real oceans.

Mari so that's why the species, what we have in the Baltic Sea are very different.

Karl Yeah. And if, you could walk someone through, like the process that origin by, Oceans. Does, from harvesting the algae to producing ingredients, what would they see happening? What does it look like at each stage?

Mari A mess for a person who doesn't understand how it goes. This goes to the investors as well when they're trying to, we're like walking them, you know, through the value chain, like, oh my god, so many steps. But yeah, bear with me. So basically it starts from the fact that we have people harvesting, sargassum.

Mari So we don't do that as a company, but we tap into the. the source, which is already there. So we [00:22:00] have companies harvesting sargassum. they do it in a different ways. There are a lots of different ways of harvesting it. Then it comes to the land and then we dry it. So then we have different ways of drying sargassum.

Mari Then it actually comes to Finland, from the Caribbean, because now we are based here. So then it goes to the containers. Goes to the ship, then it happily sails, its way to Finland and then it comes to our place. So then when it comes to the lab, we take it as it is, it's dried material, we have to wet it, and then we start processing it.

Mari So then we have very typical, I would say. you need operations from chemical industry reactors, puts some pans that it goes through, and then we do the purifications and out comes white powders. So that's what I always say that. Our products, they don't look like seaweed, they don't taste like seaweed.

Mari And definitely they don't smell like seaweed. And that's the beauty of it. the white powders then go to our customers and they [00:23:00] are making cosmetics or hygiene products, textile printing processes and nutraceutical.

Erum Wow. Wow. Yeah. I definitely wanna go into some of these applications in a bit, but, I would like to kind of just talk a little bit more about the origin of Origin by Ocean.

Erum and so you saw this potential in marine biomass and speaking, to the world of scientists. What were the first experiments or early ideas that convince you that this could become a real bio-refinery system rather than just a research concept?

Mari I think it's the business itself. and in a way I'm always been very, even though that, you know, I've done my PhD and I, I'm being, in academia, but I always been very business true in person because I think, and this might sound very arrogant, but I say it anyway, I think the change happens through business.

Mari and that's just how we are built. but we don't have to do business in a way that we've been doing. So far, so this was something that I saw straight away that seaweed based products are [00:24:00] definitely not a new thing. It's not like we invented something amazing that I'm gonna go to Sweden and get a Nobel Prize.

Mari No way. Because, you know, they been, they've been there for quite some time. So then I actually started to do a lot of research on that and I was, familiar with these sea wheeled based products, from early, 1920s and 1930s. and that was something that was triggering me that there needs to be more, that Wes us know few, but there needs to be more.

Mari And then also I'm always been interested in, the functionality. It's like if you have a molecule, it's, well, it's great that you have a molecule, but what is the functionality? what's the performance? And then I started to think From the market and the product point of view, that how do we get that functionality?

Mari And then seeing that, okay, in a frown, seaweed, do we have something that has this functionality or potentially could have this functionality? And this is how it started, that it's a real business. There is a potential for, basically building a [00:25:00] business case from day one.

Mari And I think it's actually, I think seaweed is not necessarily the most interesting academic topic, because then you have to go and search for the things that are unknown. And there is a lot of unknown in the seaweed, because we have different seaweed species, families, all of that. So I think there is a lot that we don't know.

Mari We only know a fraction. So I would rather in academia to really focus on those type of things. But at the same time, you can do also business if you know the functionality.

Karl Yeah. That's so interesting. one of the things about you is you call yourself the chief executive activist, which is a really super powerful and different title.

Karl How do you navigate this tension between being a scientist and entrepreneur and a environmental advocate all at the same time? Those are three very different roles,

Mari I think. No, that's where I disagree. I think it's the same role. I think we are just used to seeing these roles being so separated. Like if you look at the corporations, you look at the CEO [00:26:00] of big chemical company or whatever, big company, they don't necessarily behave like me.

Mari You know? They don't talk in the same way. They have their own way of functioning and I think that this is kind of. The all I, I said conventional way, I don't wanna say older or conventional way of doing business, that you have to be something like the CEO of a company, looks like this and this is how I work and this is what I do things.

Mari But I think the future will look very different, and I think even though that I'm old, but I'm still representing the future way of doing business where you can be all of these different things at the same time because your business is. Build on those values, and I think this is where the change happens and, and I'm super happy that I actually can, do all of these different things in one.

Erum you have a lot of integrity, I would say because of that. And I think this is one of the whys that I, have a lot of affinity towards you because you, are able to [00:27:00] balance, not balance, I don't wanna say that 'cause I, women always are like, how do you balance it all?

Erum But more, like, more like, like, you know, you, you're, you're bold and you're like, you have very like a true north, right? And you're not really falling into a certain model. 'cause you can't, because you're doing something completely different and it's very admirable. so let's go, we're gonna switch gears and talk.

Erum Finally talk about the applications, right? You, you create this platform, you're using these invasive, algae or seaweed species, and you're creating different ingredients for different industries. Food. You mentioned cosmetics materials. what surprised you most about how many everyday products could actually come from ocean biomass?

Mari A lot. I'm normally showing this slide to people, where I tell the story that. When we discovered oil, like 800 BC actually in China. there is research indicating that at the same time, seaweed was discovered as food. So I think it's an interesting thing [00:28:00] that we started to build the modern society on oil.

Mari So suddenly the oil, we refined it to chemicals, to fuel and what have you. But what we did with the seaweed, we, we were just eating it. Like we couldn't figure anything else out. But when you open these two boxes from the chemical points of view. And earlier when I was talking about functionality, they actually contain molecules that are different.

Mari They look very different, but they have the same functionality in the final products. And that's what I think that you can build. I'm not saying a hundred percent because that would be silly, but what I argue is that at least 50 to 60% is what we have today that could potentially actually originate.

Mari From Lange. When we look at the functionality, and I think this is remarkable, I think this is remarkable. We are looking at something that can be a platform, feedstock, and that's what makes me very happy. But we have to be [00:29:00] careful, of course, what type of a sea which we use, that we are not, taking the good guys from the ocean and, all of that, but that's another story.

Mari But if we just look at the functionality and molecules, I think it's amazing.

Karl Yeah, that is amazing. I've heard that if you were to plant. A seaweed patch the size of Texas, that would solve a huge part of the carbon capture problem. I don't know if that's actually true. So listeners correct me if I'm wrong,

Erum and actually I did wanna make another comment.

Erum You know, this whole idea of like, seaweed being used to make a lot of things. I mean, on our podcast we had, Julie Marsh of Sway and they're using algae to make, plastic films. and then we also had, Tessa Callaghan from Keel Labs, and they're using algae to make, fabrics, or actually I think they were using it to make threads to then make, materials and clothing.

Erum So it stretches. I mean, this is, why we have this podcast, because you could use biology to make, almost everything. I argue everything we can, uh, find out where those edge cases are. but it's a beautiful thing.

Erum You know there's a lot of climate solutions that focus on reducing harm, [00:30:00] but your model is also talking about restoring ecosystems while creating economic value. Do you see that as like a new blueprint for environmental entrepreneurship, or how do you see that?

Mari Absolutely. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I think we have to rethink. The way we run business today. So everything, what we do today, how we build the modern society is based on extracting business model. We extract, we make profit on profit, on profit, and I think all very good for your stakeholders if they're happy.

Mari but I think this is a wrong way of doing business and I think it's kind of a time for us. to look at the regenerative business models.

Lizette Mari talks about building a regenerative value chain. That means designing a system that doesn't just reduce harm, but positively impacts the environment as they operate. Instead of extracting resources and depleting ecosystems, the process helps restore them. So [00:31:00] it's not just sustainable, it's additive, and the system gets better as it runs.

Mari So how do we actually have a positive impact at every single step along the value chain? This is super hard work, but that's why I'm always arguing against the sustainability and E-S-G-E-S-G is there to do less harm.

Mari So it's for the big corporations they're like, oh my God, we have to do ESG reporting. How the hell do we do that? And then, they are trying to fix things. But they are very subtle things, what they do, right? It's a very different business when you actually build the company based on those values that you want to look at every single step.

Mari It's a decision. You take that decision and it becomes your value, your core value. And I think that's something that, that's the new blueprint. That's why we shouldn't be lazy anymore. And just to say that, let's just follow what we have, I think new [00:32:00] businesses definitely should focus on that thing.

Mari and no one is perfect. Like no one is perfect and that's also fine and we should be honest about that, but at least we have to be. Brave enough. Maybe it's bravery as well to look at the steps and, try to improve.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. Bravery, creativity, imagination. which all those things you're doing at Origin By Ocean and this idea of convergence, cross chemistry, ecology, industry.

Erum I love to know like, how do you think. About like how scientists and entrepreneurs need to collaborate differently to solve problems at this scale. How do they all come together? You talked about value chain. Share a little bit bit more about how this collaboration occurs.

Mari Totally agree. I think we need diversity.

Mari I think diversity in the nature is a great thing. That's why we have amazing ecosystem in the nature because it's diverse. we should also have diversity in business. for so long, if we look at the board of the big companies, they are, white males. [00:33:00] All very nice. But I think if you want to make a change, why do we always hire people who are similar to us?

Mari We of, course, always fall in love with people that we are seeing our old, beautiful reflection not on them. And you're like, great, we are not gonna have any problems because we think alike. But I think that's also not pushing the boundaries and not pushing the thinking where we should be. So that's why I'm thinking that.

Mari we should look at beyond gender and, and all of these things. I think that's also a very conventional way of looking at things, but really diversity, meaning that people have different backgrounds, they have different educational backgrounds, professional backgrounds and life, because in life you, learn a lot.

Mari and I think that's Inspirational that you can bring these people together because then, things start to happen and, and use the, the soup in a very, different way.

Karl Absolutely. let's do some future casting. Like if you look at the next decade, what emerging technologies or scientific discoveries do you think could [00:34:00] most dramatically be transformed?

Karl in the way we use or, in the use of, ocean biomass.

Mari I think that was actually, that's a very, difficult, question, to answer. So I would say that what we will see in the future is that marine biomass can give you solutions to certain things. I think we will start to understand where it actually makes sense. I kind of argue that using seaweed to produce certain materials is not necessarily the best thing to do. and I think by doing it, we need to do it so that we learn, and I think we will be in a situation that we have a, I call it a platform understanding of. Where should we go with the marine biomass and maybe other biomass or even oil in some cases is a better solution when we actually look at that from different angles.

Mari And I think that's why it's always very scary. [00:35:00] 'cause in the seaweed world, I think, people become very religious. Like you become a seaweed, religious person and then you think that it will save the world. Unfortunately, I think it's not gonna save the world, but I think, it has its place.

Mari We are exploring how big the room is, and I think that's maybe something that we will see in the future more.

Erum Yeah. Yeah. I think, the Gen Z would call that a being a seaweed maxie. Oh, is that

Mari true?

Karl Seaweed, Maxima. Seaweed, maximalist. Because because we're talking about seaweed, maxing on this podcast.

Karl Yeah.

Erum I mean like, so seaweed, maxing, but look, talk about marine biomass. Has there been other invasive species of other marine organisms that have crossed your mind or people that's like, oh, what about this fish or these jellyfish? Or like, have there been other. Marine that cross your mind?

Mari Yeah, there are actually quite a, few. and the funny thing is that, and of course I'm not a [00:36:00] marine biologist and I'm not even trying to be, but what I'm being reading is that the balance within the marine ecosystems are changing so rapidly nowadays that in certain areas you might have a year that certain species, let's say like a parrot fish,

Mari The population will go up like crazy and they are eating coral, so then you have less coral. So I think these type of changes are fairly, I don't wanna use word normal, but lack of a better word, let's say normal situations, what are happening around the world. I think we are seeing a lot of changes and shifts within one ecosystem.

Mari and I think that's really scary that. If you don't spend time there, you don't see it. And if someone is writing about it, maybe it's like not so interesting for many people. But those are really dramatic changes which are taking place as we speak. and not to mention the coral bleaching and coral dying.

Mari I mean, we have lost so [00:37:00] much in the recent years. And, think it's. It's super sad. It makes me very, very sad and I think we are not taking it seriously. Yeah,

Erum yeah. Hopefully that changes and hopefully we can have more interesting interventions that can help, bring some more balance and, products, I mean, being able to use entrepreneurship, environmental entrepreneurship as a tool to help solve some of these problems.

Erum It's a great thing, and thank you so much for what you're doing. but now we're at the part of the episode where we're going to ask you our quick fire questions. are you ready?

Mari Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready.

Erum All right. Okay. I,

Mari I don't know, but I, I, I pretend to be

Erum Okay. I think you'll be, I think, let's see.

Erum There's only one way to find out. Here we go. If the ocean could send humanity one passive aggressive text message, what would it say?

Mari That was actually something I wrote down. I have to admit, because I think it was such a good question. So, so I had different type of, things and then I ended up writing this.

Mari I said that, all of that, [00:38:00] nitrogen and phosphorus, you are flushing in. It's just lovely. it has triggered the most dramatic algae blooms. my fish are literally breathless with excitement. I know you are busy with your industrial growth, so don't worry about the dead zones. I'm growing in return.

Mari It's the least I can do.

Erum Oh,

Mari snap.

Karl That's so good. And I think actually that answer bleeds right into our next quickfire question, which is, what's one thing that people blame on climate change that's actually a nutrient problem?

Mari Algae blooms. Algae blooms? A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Erum What's the most surprising thing seaweed can already do that people don't realize?

Mari That's very tricky. I would say, and this is maybe a very boring answer, but I would say that it's buffering, the acidic CO2, so they actually have a good job to do so. Oceans are absorbing CO2 and that's very acidic.

Mari So that's [00:39:00] why we have acidification issues with the ocean. So the seaweed is doing the buffering and I think that's something that we should remember that this is something that they actually have a function there as, well.

Karl What's one everyday product that should definitely come from algae?

Mari I would definitely go for cosmetics and nutraceutical.

Erum Nice. And then finally, one ocean organism you think deserves way more hype.

Mari Oh, this is my favorite. Nudibranch. Nudibranch, definitely.

Mari what are those?

Mari they are called also sea slugs. they are very beautiful. we could talk about them for ages, but I will just leave it there.

Mari Nudibranch. They are amazing.

Erum Wow. I never heard, slug and beautiful in the same sentence, so I will have to look it up. I'll put a link in the show notes.

Karl Yeah. And just, unrelated, but we have an aquarium in this weekend we bought some snails and we're way more excited about the snails than the fish.

Karl So they're not slugs, but

Mari Yes.

Karl It's so related. Related,

Mari yes. [00:40:00] Amazing.

Erum There's one thing also I wanted to quickly talk about, is I remember on LinkedIn that you posted something about a product. Was that a prototype product or is it something that you're, putting out to the world? just wanted to make sure we talked about it.

Mari Yeah, so those are the demo products, what we are doing for our customers. So we are showcasing how these white powders actually work in, real life products.

Erum what is the functionality. Just curious.

Mari Oh, we have tons. So we have, oh my God. We have, cosmetic products, that they are helping all kinds of skin conditions.

Mari We have hair growth products, we have makeup, which is really like this year we are showcasing, around the world the makeup that you can do using our ingredients. yeah, so there are lots of things that we are doing. We can go everywhere and I think that's the most exciting thing is that we want to show that to our customers and give them the ideas because they don't normally necessarily see the potential.

Mari So we have to show them the potential.

Erum I love that.

Karl Yeah. That's amazing. Mari, thank you so much for coming on the GR Everything podcast. This [00:41:00] has been such a pleasure to have you on. Really, really appreciate it.

Mari My pleasure. Thank you. It was so nice to chat with you. It was so much fun. Thank you.

Karl IAM, what did you think of our interview with Mari?

Erum It was so nice to reconnect with Mari. as you can see, she's so much fun. To talk to, I felt like kindred spirits. I feel like maybe we were like best friends in a previous life. That's like how kindred I feel like our [00:42:00] relationship is.

Erum but I just love what she stands for. She really advocates for Ocean as a resource, not just a victim, right? We always think like, oh, poor oceans, which true, we have done some damage. but. There's also ways to fix it that can be valuable. So she reframed this concept of eutrofication, which is the whole algae blooming because of the nutrient density.

Erum and she reframed it as like, oh, this is an opportunity to take this invasive sargassum, in this case, these invasive sargassum blooms, and reframe it not just as an environmental crisis, but an untapped feedstock. For new bio-refinery industry. So I really love the way that she's challenging the way we think about pollution.

Erum And this is another like waste to value story that we love highlighting, that we've had this narrative played through many different episodes of people taking waste gas or other waste agriculture feed feedstocks and making [00:43:00] something valuable out of it. And this is really wonderful that Mari is doing this in such an incredible way.

Erum what about you? Well, what do you think about that episode?

Karl I mean, I grew up, by the ocean in Southern California, and red Bloom would happen On a regular basis. And I think, I've heard of other people talking about, using that algae for, different purposes. So I was really glad to see ma do this because it's another example of nature holds all the answers and nature holds lots of compounds that we can use.

Karl And a lot of these red blooms are caused by man. I mean, she said they were harvesting their. seaweed from the Gulf of Mexico. and we know that there is a lot of nitrogen that flows off of crops, ends up in the Mississippi River, which is an incredible watershed, and then that ends up going down to the Gulf of Mexico where these blooms happen because there's an excess of nitrogen.

Karl And so I love seeing what they're doing. She mentioned seaweed is the oil we never [00:44:00] use, which I found to be a striking contrast. I never really thought about seaweed that way. And I think you had said to me, you know, what would've happened if we used seaweed instead of oil? It's a really interesting, like, thought experiment.

Erum Yeah. She really, brought it back because she was talking about how, seaweed was discovered, 800 BC around the same time as oil as a resource. But there was a fascinating question that arose like, what if we had built modern society on marine biomass instead of fossil fuels? what kind of world will we be living in?

Erum And you know what, we can still make that world. And here we are, like rethinking the use of seaweed allergy and other biomass to make things. And let's see what the world looks like, in the a hundred years if we continue down this route of, again, growing everything. I love to bring it back to the name of the podcast, but, but yeah, I just, love the fact that she brought that storytelling in history.

Erum To the context of what she's doing.

Karl I think that's a jumping off [00:45:00] point for a steampunk novel. Steampunk is always like these alternate histories where, computers are powered by steam. And I think one, alternate history novel where seaweed is the primary feedstock and oil, I think could be really interesting the book could also talk about these regenerative versus extractive business models that Marie talked about.

Erum Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. and then also it's like, what happens if we start relying on seaweed too much, right? What if we did seaweed, maxing?

Karl Oh my God.

Erum but she took a good take on it. She's realistic on marine biomass. she pushed back on the idea of seaweed will save the world, right?

Erum So, some, founders can just shrink their own Kool-Aid and just be rah rah rah one thing. But she was like, she's very well balanced in her, perspective of. What solutions exist to be making different products when it comes to using biomanufacturing? And she saw that, you know? Right. And for this case, it makes sense, the invasiveness [00:46:00] of sargassum, what SAR orgasms made of all the molecules that are in there that are helpful for personal care and beauty applications.

Erum And it's just, really refreshing to see this dose of scientific honesty. And I, again, mari, she gets it, Besides being a chief executive activist, you know, she's also scuba diver yoga teacher. She's very holistic in that regard.

Erum So she's, I think that really helps with her perspective when it comes to building a business. And she's doing all the things right, checking off all the boxes, and, I cannot wait to see what's next for her. I can wait to try some of the products that are made through the. ingredients that she's manufacturing and we're rooting for you, Mari.

Erum We are so, so happy to have you on. Cannot wait to see you again and hang out. Of course. and yeah, that was a great episode. I really enjoyed it. Anything else, Carl?

Karl No, I think that covers Mari's episode Mari, and our interview with her very well.

Karl I just want to say, meet us at DC [00:47:00] Climate Week on April 23rd. We're gonna be doing a live. Recording where we're interviewing a distinguished panel of investors and entrepreneurs who are using biology to make the world a better place. In other words, using biology to grow everything.

Karl And if you're gonna be going to soon Bio beta in San Francisco early in May, you can meet us there as well. you can use the promo code, grow everything for a discount.

Erum Thank you so much for tuning into the Grow Everything podcast. Find us on all streaming channels. Of course, you're listening to us right now on the streaming channel, but we're on others.

Erum And please like and subscribe on all of them. It really helps us grow the audience, grow everything. especially when I give a shout out to our substack can get a nice dose of grow everything delivered to your inbox every week. And thank you so much for listening.

Karl That's the pod.