Finnish green chemicals company Origin by Ocean and the CABB Group, a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) for chemicals, have entered into a strategic partnership to establish an algae biorefinery at CABB’s production site in Kokkola, Finland. The facility is set to begin operating in 2028, processing sargassum, an invasive brown seaweed, into high-value ingredients, such as alginate, fucoidan, and biomass residue.
Since 2011 what has been called the Sargassum crisis has resulted in massive algal blooms that cover beaches in foul-smelling sargassum that threatens marine life, smothers coral reefs and interferes with fishing. When Sargassum decomposes, it depletes oxygen in coastal waters, leading to hypoxia (low oxygen conditions) that can harm marine life. According to the Government of Jamaica, cleaning up sargassum from Caribbean beaches costs an estimated $120 million annually.
Origin by Ocean aims to turn this material into products to replace those made using fossil fuels such as packaging, cosmetics, detergents, and soaps., contain fossil-based chemicals.
“Our fossil-based world is broken,” said Mari Granström, Chief Executive Activist and Founder of Origin by Ocean. “For change to be possible at a large scale, we need to reimagine the value chains of the products that we use every day in our lives As we partner with CABB and prepare for the construction of the first-of-a-kind biorefinery, we are already planning for additional biorefineries in the Caribbean, closer to the sargassum blooms. The advantage of our technology is that we can establish facilities anywhere around the world. Now, we are ready to scale and actively looking for partners to accelerate the widespread industrial adoption of new ingredients derived from brown algae.“
Origin by Ocean is currently looking for strategic investors and partners for the biorefinery, set to be built on CABB production site in Finland’s Kokkola Industrial Park (KIP), Northern Europe’s largest ecosystem of inorganic chemical industry.
“CABB is excited to partner with Origin by Ocean and the opportunity to advance our sustainability agenda as well as our growth strategy in Life Science,” said Ari Venninen, Managing Director of CABB Oy in Finland.
To date, Origin by Ocean is working with multinational consumer goods companies, and Finnish fashion and lifestyle companies, such as Marimekko.
