High Value Products from Molokai Seaweed: A New Enterprise for Coastal Hawaiians

The project is to expand a small business in Molokai, a rural community in Hawaii, to develop products based on one of the island's most under utilized resources, seaweeds. Seaweeds are marketed as fresh sea-vegetables in local markets. However, these markets are limited; and this proposal includes the development and marketing of new, seaweed-based products The focus is on the production products based on agar, phycocolloid extract of red seaweeds. These products will be specialty products for use where high quality is desired: cosmetics, health foods and gourmet foods. The seaweeds used for producing Molokai agar are organically grown in clean tropical waters and sun-in-dried along the beach. The agar is extracted without the use of harsh chemicals. This results in a clean, natural product that can be used for the development of several seaweed-based products.