Preserving Quality: Post Harvest Handling and Storage | Farmer Forum

Recorded on October 12, 2023

This Farmer Forum webinar explores practical techniques for maintaining kelp quality from harvest to market. Sam Garwin, GreenWave’s Director of Market Development, shares research findings on reducing salt and iodine content in fresh kelp while preserving product integrity. The presentation includes insights on preventing blistering, managing biofouling, and optimal storage conditions for extending shelf life.

Chapters

00:00 – Introduction 

Overview of GreenWave’s Farmer Forum series and post-harvest handling research

 

03:02 – Post-Harvest Fundamentals 

Understanding kelp respiration and why quality preservation matters after harvest

 

08:13 – Salt Reduction Methods 

Research findings on reducing salt content while maintaining kelp integrity

 

13:20 – Blistering Prevention 

Discovery of how freshwater exposure affects kelp and techniques to delay blistering

 

15:55 – Iodine Reduction & Biofouling Management 

Testing various wash water treatments for removing iodine and biofouling

 

20:56 – Storage Conditions Research 

Optimal temperature, humidity, and packaging methods for extending shelf life

 

30:00 – Q&A Session 

In-depth discussion of research applications for commercial kelp farming

Transcript

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Hi everyone. Uh, welcome to today’s Farmer Forum. We’re gonna get started. Um,

 

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my name is Sam Garrin. I am Green Wave’s Director of Market Development,

 

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and I’m based in Boston, Massachusetts. Um,

 

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for those of you who are joining for the first time,

 

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farmer Forum is an initiative we launched last year to connect the ACT active

 

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farming community, um,

 

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by bringing together people from monthly calls on real tangible topics that you

 

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might be facing in the field. And, um,

 

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so we hosted our first webinar on post harvest handling and last year’s farmer

 

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forum series. Um, and so we are kicking off this year’s series.

 

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This is the very first one of this year’s series, um,

 

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with, um,

 

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another post-harvest handling webinar that builds on the findings, uh,

 

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from last year with some new ones,

 

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and also recaps some of what we know about best practices around post-harvest

 

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handling and quality.

 

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And I do wanna call out that the research that we’re gonna be presenting today

 

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was funded in part by a global seaweed coalition grant,

 

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which we’re very grateful for. Um,

 

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and one quick administrative thing before we get going. Um,

 

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this call is being recorded, but only in speaker view.

 

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So if you don’t come off mute or put anything in the chat,

 

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you will not show up in that recording. That said,

 

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if you don’t mind being recorded,

 

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feel free to put questions in the chat as we go. Uh,

 

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Gigi will keep track of those or, uh, save them till the end,

 

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and you can come off mute and ask those questions directly.

 

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So in, um,

 

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in order to stay on track with timing,

 

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we’re gonna do introductions in the chat today.

 

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So if you wouldn’t mind putting in the chat your name, uh,

 

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what your role in the industry is, and where your farm or business is located,

 

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and then everyone can see those come in, um, as we get moving here.

 

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So I, I do have some co-presenters today.

 

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Our folks will be on the call answering questions based on about our research.

 

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Um, I’m joined today by Jeff Brandenburg, um, and Eric Vander Cook of Q Fresh,

 

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which is an independent consultancy specializing in fresh produce, uh,

 

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food science and packaging design and testing. And, uh, behind the scenes,

 

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I’m also supported by Grace Coy, our market, uh, development program manager,

 

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and by Gigi Lititz, our programs coordinator.

 

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So today on our agenda,

 

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we are going to be diving into post-harvest handling and quality control,

 

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spending a few minutes talking about what those are and why we care about them.

 

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And then we’re gonna spend the majority of the time talking about the 2022 to

 

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2023, uh, harvest season research that we could did with Q Freshs labs,

 

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where we looked at reducing salt, iodine and biofouling.

 

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And we also looked further into what the, um,

 

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optimal temperature and relative humidity conditions are for storing kelp post

 

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harvest. We’ll end with a few suggestions for future research, uh, that,

 

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that anyone out there could do, and then of course,

 

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leave plenty of time at the end for.

 

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So to start, what is post-harvest handling? Um,

 

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we think of post harvest handling, not just in seaweed,

 

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but across the board in any agricultural context as the stage of crop

 

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production immediately following harvest.

 

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And so this includes everything from transportation to

 

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cooling, cleaning, sorting, and packing.

 

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And it is really the most important period to preserve quality.

 

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So when that kelp comes out of the water,

 

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it is the freshest and best that it is ever going to be,

 

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and it can only go downhill from there. So your job as the farmer,

 

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or as anyone who plans to sell kelp commercially, um, or to feed people, um,

 

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is to preserve that quality, uh, because, uh, this is,

 

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this is the only chance you get basically, um,

 

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the science behind that. Just to do a quick science lesson here, um,

 

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you know, we all know that kelp photosynthesizes,

 

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and that when it’s photosynthesizes, it is, uh,

 

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pulling in c o two and, uh,

 

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it is using that c o two with, uh,

 

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sunshine to produce glucose. And it is also then,

 

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um, releasing if my clicks will work.

 

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There we go re releasing oxygen.

 

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And when we buy fresh fruits and vegetables from the store,

 

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we have an implicit understanding that they are in some ways still alive, right?

 

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So even though they’re no longer attached to the plant, they are, um,

 

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alive in some way. But if we keep them around long enough,

 

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they begin to decay and die, then we have to throw ’em away.

 

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So in the period of time between when something is harvested and when it

 

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eventually breaks down and dies, there are these metabolic reactions happening,

 

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and specifically the tissues that once performed, photosynthesis, um,

 

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switch to respiration.

 

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And respiration is the same exact activity that humans and every other living

 

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creature on earth is doing. And it is the opposite of photosynthesis.

 

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And so this is also what kelp does at night, by the way, when,

 

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when the sun goes down. Um, so the sun in respiration,

 

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we’re using that glucose in combination with oxygen and transforming it into

 

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carbon dioxide, water and energy or heat.

 

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So in other words, just like that fresh ke, uh, just like the fresh, um,

 

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produce in the grocery store,

 

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fresh kelp after it’s harvested is still alive and is doing something very

 

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different than what it did in the ocean.

 

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And a respiration rate is the speed at which

 

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respiration occurs. Um, and so we’re, we’re,

 

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what we’re trying to do when we wanna preserve quality is to slow

 

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down that respiration rate and keep that kelp in this respiration pseudo

 

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alive state for as long as possible.

 

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Because eventually when we use up all that glucose or when all that,

 

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uh, oxygen is used up, your kelp is going to die. And at that point,

 

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it gets real yucky and nobody will want to buy it.

 

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So when we think about quality, quality is really, uh,

 

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a measurable criteria that anyone could use to evaluate and compare

 

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seaweed crops. This is a little different than shelf life or food safety.

 

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So shelf life, you’ve heard that word is the length of

 

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time during which a, a product is desirable.

 

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And food safety refers to practices that prevent contamination, pathogen growth,

 

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and spoilage that could lead to sickness in people.

 

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And sea Grant has done amazing work on food safety. I see Michael Cella in the,

 

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in the audience. Um, he’s done some amazing work. Anushka, uh,

 

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has done some amazing work on food safety.

 

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That’s not really what we’re talking about today.

 

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We’re talking about quality standards, which have more to do with, uh,

 

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whether your product is going to be accepted by the buyer and whether it is

 

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going to be appropriate for whatever use cases you have in mind.

 

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So quality is really driven by whatever your customer wants.

 

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It may differ between buyers, even within the same market,

 

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but it can help differentiate your kelp from someone else’s kelp.

 

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And it can help command a premium price if you are able to consistently hit your

 

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quality standards.

 

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And some ways that we can think about quality, you might say, well,

 

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I know it when I see it,

 

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but that doesn’t really work when it comes to interacting with buyers. The more,

 

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uh, concrete we can get about what quality means,

 

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the better off these relationships are gonna be between all the way across the

 

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supply chain from, uh, from nurseries all the way to buyers.

 

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And so these are some ways that we can think about quality when it comes to,

 

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you know, what temperature is the kelp when it comes in, when it’s harvested,

 

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uh, what’s the moisture level? What color is it? The texture, the odor,

 

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and really putting words to describe what these things are.

 

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Maybe even attaching some photos to,

 

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to explain what you mean when you say something is a certain color. Um,

 

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these are some guidance that we have developed from talking to a lot of buyers,

 

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but you will likely want to come up with your own, um,

 

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that as you work with buyers to figure out what they want.

 

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And here we’ve summarized some of the things that we know already about

 

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what farmers can do to control quality. Um, some of these are

 

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during harvest and transport. Some of these are post-harvest. These are just,

 

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uh, you know, these are,

 

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are the commonly accepted ways in which we know we can control quality.

 

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And with the research that we did that we’re gonna be talking about shortly,

 

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we were trying to drill down on some of these topics and figure out, well,

 

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what else is,

 

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is there anything else we can do or can we get more specific about, um,

 

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for example, this contact with fresh water. Why,

 

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why don’t we want contact with fresh water? And how fresh is the water?

 

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And if you know that to be an issue,

 

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and how long would it have to be in con in contact for that to be an issue?

 

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Um, so getting into that research now, um, we

 

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decided to dig into some really common things that we have heard from buyers

 

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as being issues. So cell content, iodine, content,

 

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biofouling, all things that buyers are concerned about when they’re buying kelp,

 

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especially for food uses.

 

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And then we wanted to build on some research that we did last year around

 

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storage conditions for,

 

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for kelp quality and understand how humidity and,

 

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and temperature might affect the quality of the kelp when it is in storage.

 

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And in all of these studies that we did,

 

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we were really trying to use minimal processing techniques. Um,

 

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one of the things that QF Fresh specializes in is fresh product,

 

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fresh produce. And we’re looking at ways that we could,

 

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um, you know, control the salt,

 

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control the iodine without completely transforming the,

 

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the fresh kelp into some something else,

 

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into something that’s dried or fermented or otherwise,

 

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just a fundamentally different product methods that are really common in fresh

 

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produce processing. So we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel,

 

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we’re trying to say like,

 

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what do we already do in other food sectors and do they work on kelp and,

 

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and what effect do they do they have on kelp?

 

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So let’s get into it. Um, salt reduction. Why do we care?

 

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So sugar kelp does have a relatively high sodium content, and it is,

 

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you know, it’s less than straight salt, but, but it, it’s a pretty up there. Um,

 

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and salt levels are a concern for food and agriculture applications.

 

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So from the food side, there are folks who are watching their sodium,

 

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that is something that C P G products have to pay attention to when they’re

 

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building, building out their product and, and, um, developing their food labels.

 

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And for agriculture,

 

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people are concerned about applying salt to the, to the ground.

 

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You know, too much salt could have toxic effects for plants,

 

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and there are really very few extraction methods that preserve a fresh,

 

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fresh product. So, um,

 

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in addition to losing salt through some of the existing processing methods,

 

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we know that you are also losing calcium minerals and having a texture change if

 

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you do things like blanc your kelp. So a question we had going into this was,

 

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are we able to reduce salt? Why

 

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preserving, um, some of qualities of, uh,

 

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the desirable qualities of fresh ke?

 

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So we tried what is essentially the, the simplest possible way to reduce salt,

 

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which is we, we wanted to see, okay, if we take this kelp and,

 

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and we put it in different levels of salt water,

 

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so to going all the way from the same salt water,

 

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the same saltiness as the ocean down to

 

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totally fresh water, um, you know,

 

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it will the kelp be encouraged to essentially just release that salt

 

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into the water.

 

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So we put kelp in different salinity wash waters,

 

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and we stir it around a little bit,

 

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and we checked and documented the salt concentration in every approximately two

 

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to five minutes, and noted changes in color, texture, appearance,

 

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trigger pressure. So that’s the, like how, how, uh,

 

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almost like the texture, like how, how rigid is it? And, uh,

 

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we also looked to see if there was any bio foul removal, removal.

 

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And what we found was that the largest increase in,

 

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in salinity, in,

 

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in salt released from the kelp occurred in the first step down from

 

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ocean water to brackish water. And, um,

 

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with each subsequent bath,

 

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the amount of salt that was released decreased.

 

208

00:12:54.330 –> 00:12:56.590

So here it is in chart format,

 

209

00:12:57.210 –> 00:13:01.190

you can see this big jump in the beginning from, uh,

 

210

00:13:01.190 –> 00:13:04.230

37.5 P P T to, uh, 20.

 

211

00:13:05.360 –> 00:13:08.940

And then from there it kind of, it went, it, it, um,

 

212

00:13:09.530 –> 00:13:13.060

kind of fluctuated a little bit. Um, so we,

 

213

00:13:13.480 –> 00:13:18.340

we can see that there was a big jump and then less benefit from the era and out.

 

214

00:13:19.670 –> 00:13:23.570

And we also just go back to this last point in here.

 

215

00:13:23.710 –> 00:13:26.610

Notice the blistering occurred, and this was not a surprise to us. We,

 

216

00:13:26.610 –> 00:13:30.850

we know from all the best practices that are out there that we know that

 

217

00:13:30.850 –> 00:13:35.650

blistering occurred. But, um, so with this finding, we said, okay, well, well,

 

218

00:13:35.650 –> 00:13:39.370

could we find out more about that blistering? And why does it happen?

 

219

00:13:39.430 –> 00:13:43.330

And when does it happen? So we then dived into the,

 

220

00:13:43.710 –> 00:13:46.810

the blistering a little bit further. This was not officially part of our study,

 

221

00:13:46.910 –> 00:13:49.770

but you know, scientists get curious. So, uh,

 

222

00:13:49.870 –> 00:13:53.130

we decided to investigate, um,

 

223

00:13:53.840 –> 00:13:58.530

what happens when, uh, we put salt the,

 

224

00:13:58.550 –> 00:14:01.210

the kelp into varying levels of salt water.

 

225

00:14:01.630 –> 00:14:05.970

Is there a salinity level that is sufficient to prevent or delay blistering?

 

226

00:14:06.470 –> 00:14:09.970

And, um, does, does it the blistering appear in different places, et cetera.

 

227

00:14:10.870 –> 00:14:15.090

So this was one of the, my favorite parts of the experiment actually, um, was,

 

228

00:14:15.110 –> 00:14:19.050

was learning all this new, all these new fun facts about blistering. Um,

 

229

00:14:19.340 –> 00:14:20.173

first of all,

 

230

00:14:20.270 –> 00:14:24.650

we learned that lower salinity does result in,

 

231

00:14:24.670 –> 00:14:27.330

in quicker blistering, and that blistering increases over time.

 

232

00:14:27.870 –> 00:14:29.090

But we also learned that,

 

233

00:14:29.240 –> 00:14:33.650

that there is a period of time before blistering occurs.

 

234

00:14:33.710 –> 00:14:35.610

So we found that sugar kelp,

 

235

00:14:35.610 –> 00:14:39.490

in some cases could withstand seven to 12 minutes in fresh water prior to

 

236

00:14:39.490 –> 00:14:42.810

blistering. Um, we also discovered that,

 

237

00:14:42.810 –> 00:14:46.570

that you could actually delay that blistering by adding just a little bit of

 

238

00:14:46.570 –> 00:14:50.610

salt to, to the water. And so we, uh, here you can say,

 

239

00:14:50.660 –> 00:14:55.360

could this third bullet point blistering could be delayed up to 60 minutes with

 

240

00:14:55.420 –> 00:15:00.310

as little as five P p t salt. And finally,

 

241

00:15:00.690 –> 00:15:05.190

we also saw that blistering actually stops when the sugar kelp is removed from

 

242

00:15:05.190 –> 00:15:07.710

direct contact with the salt, with the low salinity water.

 

243

00:15:07.710 –> 00:15:12.110

So it’s not like you put it on, put the, the, the freshwater contact,

 

244

00:15:12.850 –> 00:15:16.390

uh, then results in blistering spreading throughout the kelp, and that,

 

245

00:15:16.460 –> 00:15:21.030

that you’ve just ruined your entire batch. If you can stop that, uh,

 

246

00:15:21.030 –> 00:15:22.230

contact from occurring,

 

247

00:15:23.990 –> 00:15:27.890

you will no longer see advanced damage to the kelp.

 

248

00:15:29.110 –> 00:15:31.050

Um, so this was just one study.

 

249

00:15:31.190 –> 00:15:34.370

We would really encourage others to do more research in this area,

 

250

00:15:34.590 –> 00:15:37.450

but I thought this was pretty interesting and had some pretty interesting

 

251

00:15:37.450 –> 00:15:41.610

implications for, um, folks who are, uh, might,

 

252

00:15:41.610 –> 00:15:44.450

might be harvesting under suboptimal conditions where they,

 

253

00:15:44.510 –> 00:15:48.850

the sugar kelp might come into contact perhaps briefly with freshwater.

 

254

00:15:52.430 –> 00:15:55.170

We then looked at iodine reduction.

 

255

00:15:55.470 –> 00:15:59.570

And the reason we care about iodine reduction is that, uh,

 

256

00:15:59.770 –> 00:16:03.130

a lot of the iodine that is in sugar kelp is absorbed into the bloodstream.

 

257

00:16:03.480 –> 00:16:07.610

High iodine intake can lead to hyperthyroidism, and, um,

 

258

00:16:07.610 –> 00:16:11.530

there can at times, depending on where and when the kelp is harvested,

 

259

00:16:11.590 –> 00:16:15.290

be a lot of iodine in there. So there’s a lot of iodine in there to begin with.

 

260

00:16:15.350 –> 00:16:19.370

And then the majority of it is being absorbed by humans. So, um,

 

261

00:16:20.150 –> 00:16:23.890

we want to be able to control the iodine pretty, uh, reliably.

 

262

00:16:24.510 –> 00:16:26.810

And the similar to salt,

 

263

00:16:27.030 –> 00:16:31.530

the known methods for getting iodine out significantly modify the kelp from its

 

264

00:16:31.590 –> 00:16:32.423

its fresh format.

 

265

00:16:32.950 –> 00:16:37.770

So we decided to use ozone in modified pH wash water

 

266

00:16:38.150 –> 00:16:39.530

to see if we could, again,

 

267

00:16:39.530 –> 00:16:43.810

encourage kelp to just release its iodine into the water. Similar to,

 

268

00:16:44.830 –> 00:16:45.160

uh,

 

269

00:16:45.160 –> 00:16:49.850

with the salt and ozone in wash water is a common technique used

 

270

00:16:49.990 –> 00:16:54.850

in, um, cleaning produce, as is the modified pH wash water.

 

271

00:16:59.020 –> 00:17:03.080

So what we tested, we filled 40 gallons of water,

 

272

00:17:03.860 –> 00:17:05.720

uh, in 60 gallon tanks. We, again,

 

273

00:17:05.990 –> 00:17:10.920

used the same salinity as the Atlantic Ocean in order to not introduce

 

274

00:17:10.920 –> 00:17:14.440

other variables here. And then we used ozone generators to,

 

275

00:17:14.500 –> 00:17:18.560

to create ozone in the water. Um, we added, uh,

 

276

00:17:18.560 –> 00:17:22.880

various other substan, uh, kind of sanitizers or, or pH modifiers to the water.

 

277

00:17:23.220 –> 00:17:25.920

And we added CCB to the tank, and we stirred

 

278

00:17:28.090 –> 00:17:29.230

and we

 

279

00:17:31.770 –> 00:17:35.610

observed things very similar to what we looked at for, for the salt experiments.

 

280

00:17:36.270 –> 00:17:38.810

And then we tested the iodine levels in the water,

 

281

00:17:39.270 –> 00:17:43.410

and we also tested for iodine left inside the kelp itself after,

 

282

00:17:44.310 –> 00:17:45.650

um, after it was processed.

 

283

00:17:47.280 –> 00:17:50.360

So what we found here is that the largest release of iodine, uh,

 

284

00:17:50.620 –> 00:17:55.150

was occurred with, um, with parasitic acid.

 

285

00:17:55.530 –> 00:17:59.440

So that is a, a very low pH, um,

 

286

00:18:00.690 –> 00:18:01.310

cleanser,

 

287

00:18:01.310 –> 00:18:05.530

or that is often used in produce processing in a hypers saline environment.

 

288

00:18:05.530 –> 00:18:08.530

So we added a little salt and we, uh,

 

289

00:18:08.530 –> 00:18:11.690

there was a reduction in iodine in all of the,

 

290

00:18:11.750 –> 00:18:16.660

the instances where we used P A a in general, the higher salinity,

 

291

00:18:17.720 –> 00:18:18.030

uh,

 

292

00:18:18.030 –> 00:18:22.620

water wash waters were more effective at reducing IOD con iodine content in the

 

293

00:18:22.650 –> 00:18:27.470

kelp. Um, we hypothesize that this has to do with the connectivity levels,

 

294

00:18:28.090 –> 00:18:32.430

but it was fairly challenging to figure out how effective this method was,

 

295

00:18:32.970 –> 00:18:36.990

uh, because the iodine levels in the kelp itself were so variable,

 

296

00:18:37.250 –> 00:18:41.710

and we saw that, um, both with the, the fresh product and then with the,

 

297

00:18:41.850 –> 00:18:42.830

the processed product,

 

298

00:18:42.840 –> 00:18:46.670

there was just so little consistency in what the original iodine levels were,

 

299

00:18:46.900 –> 00:18:48.590

that it was kind of hard to tell.

 

300

00:18:48.690 –> 00:18:51.190

So we would probably do this differently next time. Um,

 

301

00:18:51.490 –> 00:18:56.030

but it was interesting to see that the higher conductivity led to,

 

302

00:18:56.530 –> 00:18:59.470

uh, in general more iodine release.

 

303

00:19:03.110 –> 00:19:06.280

Finally, um, we looked, or, sorry, not finally. This is,

 

304

00:19:06.280 –> 00:19:09.800

this is finally for the, uh, for the things that we did in, in wash water,

 

305

00:19:09.800 –> 00:19:12.280

essentially. Um, we looked at bio fowl reduction.

 

306

00:19:12.540 –> 00:19:14.980

And for those of you who are active farmers,

 

307

00:19:15.400 –> 00:19:19.580

you know that bio fowl is a big concern for seaweed,

 

308

00:19:19.580 –> 00:19:22.100

that going to food uses.

 

309

00:19:22.480 –> 00:19:27.060

The primary way of managing biofouling is just simply early detection.

 

310

00:19:27.060 –> 00:19:30.500

You go out on your boat every week, the closer you get to, uh, to harvest,

 

311

00:19:30.680 –> 00:19:33.340

and you look for it. And when you see the first signs of biofouling,

 

312

00:19:33.340 –> 00:19:34.173

you harvest.

 

313

00:19:34.440 –> 00:19:38.500

But these methods of early detection are not always successful.

 

314

00:19:38.500 –> 00:19:41.780

Sometimes you miss something and you do end up with biofouling kelp.

 

315

00:19:42.160 –> 00:19:46.980

So the more we know how to remove biofuel after it has happened, the, uh,

 

316

00:19:46.980 –> 00:19:48.140

better we are able to meet,

 

317

00:19:48.290 –> 00:19:51.380

meet buyers’ needs by giving them the clean product that they want.

 

318

00:19:51.800 –> 00:19:56.220

So we were interested in learning whether there were simple and

 

319

00:19:56.730 –> 00:20:01.620

expensive ways to remove biofuel during a wash step. So once again,

 

320

00:20:02.300 –> 00:20:02.810

we, um,

 

321

00:20:02.810 –> 00:20:07.460

decided to use substances that are very commonly used in

 

322

00:20:07.630 –> 00:20:08.940

fresh produce processing.

 

323

00:20:09.320 –> 00:20:14.020

We applied varying levels of chlorine and parasitic acid, and we agitated the,

 

324

00:20:14.360 –> 00:20:17.940

uh, kelp and we observed its effectiveness for moving biofouling.

 

325

00:20:19.670 –> 00:20:23.730

And what we found here is that, uh, so first of all, I will caveat that,

 

326

00:20:23.730 –> 00:20:27.870

that the kelp that we got, uh, was cleaner than we expected.

 

327

00:20:27.970 –> 00:20:31.950

We expected there to be more biofouling. And, um, there, there was some,

 

328

00:20:32.130 –> 00:20:33.510

but there was not a lot.

 

329

00:20:33.970 –> 00:20:37.590

So we can’t say anything about these methods effectiveness on, you know,

 

330

00:20:37.610 –> 00:20:40.470

really bio fouled kelp. But, um,

 

331

00:20:40.850 –> 00:20:44.630

you can see from the pictures we had some small Bria Owens mostly on the edges

 

332

00:20:44.630 –> 00:20:45.830

of the main blades of our kelp.

 

333

00:20:46.170 –> 00:20:48.520

And we found that chlorine made bio foul removal easier,

 

334

00:20:48.820 –> 00:20:51.240

and the parasitic acid made removal significantly easier.

 

335

00:20:52.100 –> 00:20:55.880

And then if you combine parasitic acid with minimal agitation,

 

336

00:20:56.670 –> 00:20:59.420

that was, uh,

 

337

00:21:00.120 –> 00:21:05.100

the most effective method that we tried for getting that bio foul off,

 

338

00:21:06.850 –> 00:21:10.510

moving into storage conditions. Um, we, for this study,

 

339

00:21:10.510 –> 00:21:14.830

really wanted to build on what we learned last year about different container

 

340

00:21:14.830 –> 00:21:19.230

types and our understanding of the lifecycle of seaweed

 

341

00:21:19.230 –> 00:21:20.063

post-harvest,

 

342

00:21:20.250 –> 00:21:25.190

and the fact that it does need access to air in order to

 

343

00:21:25.470 –> 00:21:29.990

continue respiring and to not de start decaying, uh,

 

344

00:21:30.050 –> 00:21:33.750

too quickly. So under current food safety guidelines,

 

345

00:21:33.750 –> 00:21:35.670

fresh seaweeds should be stored below 40 degrees,

 

346

00:21:35.770 –> 00:21:40.030

but we were wondering whether it mattered how much lower than 40 degrees,

 

347

00:21:40.030 –> 00:21:43.110

whether there was any variation at different temperatures,

 

348

00:21:43.650 –> 00:21:46.630

and was there such a thing as too much moisture or too little?

 

349

00:21:47.090 –> 00:21:50.790

And so we were really looking to learn more about kind of the bounds of this.

 

350

00:21:54.410 –> 00:21:58.680

So what we did here was we

 

351

00:22:00.060 –> 00:22:05.010

harvested some kelp and we repackaged it in avar

 

352

00:22:05.110 –> 00:22:09.410

sealed bags with, uh, varying levels of macro perforations.

 

353

00:22:09.470 –> 00:22:12.690

We put them in sealed bags with micro perforations,

 

354

00:22:13.070 –> 00:22:16.730

we put them in an R P C, which is, um, I’ll show it to you in a second.

 

355

00:22:16.840 –> 00:22:20.370

It’s like a perforated, uh, uh, uh,

 

356

00:22:20.390 –> 00:22:23.810

or a vented small tote that’s used in the produce industry a lot.

 

357

00:22:24.350 –> 00:22:28.690

And we tried putting a bag around that. We tried putting a bag around it,

 

358

00:22:28.750 –> 00:22:29.810

but leaving one end open.

 

359

00:22:30.110 –> 00:22:34.530

And then we tried just leaving the seaweed completely exposed in a cooler,

 

360

00:22:38.360 –> 00:22:43.020

and there’s an R P C right there so that these bented totes are, are very,

 

361

00:22:43.260 –> 00:22:47.820

very common in produce. And so we monitored odor, color, senescence,

 

362

00:22:47.820 –> 00:22:50.100

microbial growth, and, and moisture changes.

 

363

00:22:50.640 –> 00:22:54.980

And we put the packages in different temperature ranges and, uh,

 

364

00:22:55.160 –> 00:22:59.900

we had the ambient air, uh, variable as well.

 

365

00:23:01.820 –> 00:23:06.650

So what we found was actually that a lot of these factors did not

 

366

00:23:06.650 –> 00:23:09.130

matter as much we as we expected them to.

 

367

00:23:09.310 –> 00:23:14.130

So there was not very much visible difference between

 

368

00:23:14.510 –> 00:23:19.250

the kelp stored at 33 degrees and the kelp stored at 36 degrees,

 

369

00:23:19.270 –> 00:23:23.530

and in fact, the kelp seemed to behave perfectly fine up to about 45 degrees.

 

370

00:23:23.710 –> 00:23:27.410

And so, um, you know, obviously the food for food safety reasons,

 

371

00:23:27.470 –> 00:23:28.970

we do want that to be below 40.

 

372

00:23:29.030 –> 00:23:33.160

But the good news is it’s not that sensitive below 40.

 

373

00:23:33.820 –> 00:23:36.560

We also found that, uh, as far as humidity goes,

 

374

00:23:36.860 –> 00:23:39.920

the kelp inside a bag re uh, we,

 

375

00:23:40.000 –> 00:23:44.960

we had it at lots of different levels of perforations, and we, uh,

 

376

00:23:45.200 –> 00:23:48.320

would’ve expected that humidity to change a little bit,

 

377

00:23:48.340 –> 00:23:52.480

but the seaweed really just humidified the inside of the bag to close to a

 

378

00:23:52.480 –> 00:23:55.960

hundred percent, 95 to a hundred percent. Um,

 

379

00:23:57.990 –> 00:24:00.760

and so, uh,

 

380

00:24:00.860 –> 00:24:05.640

as long as the seaweed was kept above 83%

 

381

00:24:05.920 –> 00:24:10.360

relative humidity, it was able to maintain its quality pretty darn well. So the,

 

382

00:24:10.420 –> 00:24:13.760

the, the kinda the lesson learned here is that access to air is important,

 

383

00:24:14.300 –> 00:24:16.000

but that air does need to be moist.

 

384

00:24:16.420 –> 00:24:18.240

And as long as you’re able to accomplish that,

 

385

00:24:18.240 –> 00:24:19.880

which you can do through any number of ways,

 

386

00:24:19.880 –> 00:24:22.320

whether that’s a covered vented coat,

 

387

00:24:23.160 –> 00:24:28.160

a sealed package with perforations in it, or just a room that has high humidity,

 

388

00:24:28.580 –> 00:24:30.080

you, you’re gonna be pretty, okay.

 

389

00:24:30.580 –> 00:24:34.040

So the only tests that showed degradation were this, uh,

 

390

00:24:34.040 –> 00:24:38.800

the R P C where there is only, uh, either where it was completely uncovered,

 

391

00:24:38.800 –> 00:24:43.080

so it was subjected to humidity levels that were too low, uh, or the,

 

392

00:24:43.100 –> 00:24:46.240

the one where it was the bag sort of was open at one end.

 

393

00:24:46.260 –> 00:24:51.240

And then we did see that that end was dried out and, and kind of, uh, less,

 

394

00:24:52.300 –> 00:24:56.270

less, uh, it had started. Yeah, it started to dry out,

 

395

00:24:56.270 –> 00:25:00.790

but then again when we closed the bag again, it actually re moisturized itself,

 

396

00:25:00.840 –> 00:25:02.350

which was really pretty fascinating.

 

397

00:25:06.720 –> 00:25:11.020

So next steps we would, um, you know, we,

 

398

00:25:11.080 –> 00:25:15.540

we were bound by time and money as everyone is, uh, in terms of these studies.

 

399

00:25:15.920 –> 00:25:18.300

We feel like we really just, uh,

 

400

00:25:18.480 –> 00:25:22.100

hit the tip of the iceberg here in terms of all the different things that we

 

401

00:25:22.100 –> 00:25:23.260

could investigate further.

 

402

00:25:23.720 –> 00:25:25.740

And so these are suggestions that we’re putting out there,

 

403

00:25:25.930 –> 00:25:29.180

sort of to the universe for other folks to research.

 

404

00:25:29.830 –> 00:25:32.340

These would include for this, for salt reduction,

 

405

00:25:32.340 –> 00:25:35.060

looking at electrolysis or electrolyzed water,

 

406

00:25:35.210 –> 00:25:37.700

looking at different temperature ranges in that wash water,

 

407

00:25:37.700 –> 00:25:41.580

looking at time in the wash water and additional sanitizer concentrations.

 

408

00:25:42.750 –> 00:25:46.850

Um, for the blistering work, one of the things we did not look at, we was,

 

409

00:25:46.910 –> 00:25:50.650

we did not do a full nutrient analysis. So we would,

 

410

00:25:50.910 –> 00:25:55.210

we really wonder what else is happening at the time of blistering

 

411

00:26:01.250 –> 00:26:04.490

Nutrients? Are we losing shelf life? Uh,

 

412

00:26:04.670 –> 00:26:06.610

or is it truly just a cosmetic thing?

 

413

00:26:07.230 –> 00:26:11.050

I’d be curious to see what happens with higher ozone concentrations.

 

414

00:26:11.070 –> 00:26:15.570

We use relatively small ozone generators and would be interested in seeing what

 

415

00:26:15.570 –> 00:26:19.090

would happen if, if larger or more ozone generators were used.

 

416

00:26:19.540 –> 00:26:22.930

Additional sanitizer con concentrations would be interesting to look at as well.

 

417

00:26:23.590 –> 00:26:26.850

And, uh, there’s, based on the literature,

 

418

00:26:26.850 –> 00:26:30.850

there might also be some benefit to trying different light intensities to see

 

419

00:26:30.850 –> 00:26:33.530

whether that affects the release of iodine at all

 

420

00:26:36.070 –> 00:26:37.680

When it comes to storage conditions,

 

421

00:26:38.270 –> 00:26:41.560

obviously additional temperature and humidity levels would be interesting to

 

422

00:26:41.560 –> 00:26:45.960

explore. We also hypothesize that the, um,

 

423

00:26:46.470 –> 00:26:47.180

storage,

 

424

00:26:47.180 –> 00:26:50.600

the optimal storage conditions might vary for the kelp depending on when it’s

 

425

00:26:50.600 –> 00:26:53.840

harvested, depending on what temperature the water is when it’s harvested,

 

426

00:26:54.540 –> 00:26:55.640

that’s something to look at.

 

427

00:26:56.060 –> 00:27:00.480

And it would also be interesting to look at the shelf life of packaged or value

 

428

00:27:00.480 –> 00:27:04.120

added products after the storage in various conditions. So, you know,

 

429

00:27:04.340 –> 00:27:07.680

it looks fine, uh, based on what we were able to observe,

 

430

00:27:08.100 –> 00:27:12.400

but are there actually longer term implications of storing it in different ways?

 

431

00:27:12.540 –> 00:27:16.580

We, we are not sure about that. And then when it comes to bio file reduction,

 

432

00:27:17.040 –> 00:27:18.700

uh, we would like to test the,

 

433

00:27:18.720 –> 00:27:22.020

the methods that worked for the smaller bio ffo on larger,

 

434

00:27:22.050 –> 00:27:26.260

more developed biofouling. We’d like to try different types of biofouling, um,

 

435

00:27:26.590 –> 00:27:30.020

mechanical agitation in one of these, um,

 

436

00:27:30.900 –> 00:27:33.580

machines that is actually intended for washing produce.

 

437

00:27:34.040 –> 00:27:35.460

We did this pretty manually, as you could see,

 

438

00:27:35.460 –> 00:27:39.260

we were in a food processing facility using commercial equipment, but it is not,

 

439

00:27:40.230 –> 00:27:43.570

um, commercial produce processing equipment.

 

440

00:27:43.590 –> 00:27:47.370

So that would be an area to expand into. And then of course, uh,

 

441

00:27:47.370 –> 00:27:49.650

we would also maybe wanna vary the time, uh,

 

442

00:27:49.650 –> 00:27:51.730

soaking in the wash water a bit more.

 

443

00:27:58.830 –> 00:28:00.120

Um, okay.

 

444

00:28:00.800 –> 00:28:04.760

I know that was a huge amount of information through any of these,

 

445

00:28:04.760 –> 00:28:07.600

but wanna make sure we have lots of time for questions.

 

446

00:28:10.510 –> 00:28:13.170

Um, let’s dive in here.

 

447

00:28:20.500 –> 00:28:25.340

Okay. Um, Mike,

 

448

00:28:26.980 –> 00:28:30.160

you had a question about the lifecycle slide,

 

449

00:28:31.940 –> 00:28:32.773

so lemme go back.

 

450

00:28:33.020 –> 00:28:34.280

Yes, yes, ma’am.

 

451

00:28:35.660 –> 00:28:38.880

So you talked about it being alive, like when,

 

452

00:28:40.510 –> 00:28:45.480

when is it no longer alive? Meaning, you know,

 

453

00:28:45.480 –> 00:28:48.200

when you cut it off of the line,

 

454

00:28:48.630 –> 00:28:53.320

does that sort of start the death spiral or, you know,

 

455

00:28:53.320 –> 00:28:58.040

if you cut it off and keep it in salt water, does it stay alive?

 

456

00:29:00.780 –> 00:29:03.760

Or if you were to yeah, you know, cut it at the hold fast,

 

457

00:29:04.350 –> 00:29:05.520

does that keep it alive?

 

458

00:29:08.320 –> 00:29:12.420

Um, I have not looked at that research as part of the work that we’ve done with

 

459

00:29:12.420 –> 00:29:17.020

GreenWave, but Jeff, I know you’ve done work with other, um, seaweed companies.

 

460

00:29:17.040 –> 00:29:22.040

Is there anything you can say to, to like what the cutoff point is?

 

461

00:29:22.900 –> 00:29:23.960

Uh, so, um,

 

462

00:29:26.700 –> 00:29:30.100

Yelp acts a lot like press root, fruits and vegetables.

 

463

00:29:31.180 –> 00:29:35.080

So when a fruit and vegetable is on the vine, um,

 

464

00:29:35.900 –> 00:29:39.440

photosynthesis is happening as, as Sam mentioned,

 

465

00:29:40.100 –> 00:29:42.400

as soon as you harvest it or cut it, um,

 

466

00:29:43.230 –> 00:29:48.120

that photosynthesis transitions as does a lot of other biochemical processes,

 

467

00:29:48.700 –> 00:29:53.280

but transitions over to respiration. So at that point in time,

 

468

00:29:53.910 –> 00:29:57.640

it’s slowly beginning to die, um,

 

469

00:29:58.420 –> 00:30:03.240

but it’s still considered alive as long as it’s consuming oxygen and giving

 

470

00:30:03.300 –> 00:30:04.560

off carbon dioxide.

 

471

00:30:05.140 –> 00:30:08.440

And depending upon what conditions you store it at,

 

472

00:30:08.940 –> 00:30:13.640

it will continue to do so. Some produce can last, you know,

 

473

00:30:13.910 –> 00:30:14.743

15,

 

474

00:30:14.800 –> 00:30:19.800

17 days under the right conditions and still be considered alive at

 

475

00:30:19.800 –> 00:30:23.520

some point in time, though, it’s going to use up all of its energy,

 

476

00:30:23.670 –> 00:30:27.880

it’s no longer gonna consume oxygen, give off carbon dioxide,

 

477

00:30:27.950 –> 00:30:32.920

heat and moisture, and then it is completely dead. Um,

 

478

00:30:33.260 –> 00:30:38.240

so that’s usually a number of days after you harvest it. But make no mistake,

 

479

00:30:39.310 –> 00:30:43.360

once you harvest it, the clock starts ticking. Uh,

 

480

00:30:43.620 –> 00:30:48.080

and so what you’re trying to do is extend that clock,

 

481

00:30:48.260 –> 00:30:50.680

extend that time period as long as possible.

 

482

00:30:51.980 –> 00:30:54.440

So, so that ties into my second question that I posted.

 

483

00:30:54.660 –> 00:30:58.640

So if you were to harvest it and put it in bags and then throw those bags, um,

 

484

00:30:58.910 –> 00:31:03.800

over the side and sort of store those in the seawater for throughout the

 

485

00:31:03.800 –> 00:31:07.480

day until you’re ready to go in, does that extend the,

 

486

00:31:08.850 –> 00:31:12.340

the liveness, you know, does that buy you the eight hours, um,

 

487

00:31:12.730 –> 00:31:15.340

that it otherwise would be in a tub starting to,

 

488

00:31:15.340 –> 00:31:18.420

Yeah, so that’s a great question, Mike. What you’re talking about,

 

489

00:31:19.200 –> 00:31:22.820

we refer to as modified atmosphere packaging. And you know,

 

490

00:31:22.820 –> 00:31:26.980

and this is true for all leafy green products, it’s true for seaweed.

 

491

00:31:27.040 –> 00:31:30.940

So the seaweed is consuming oxygen, giving off carbon dioxide.

 

492

00:31:31.400 –> 00:31:34.460

If you put it inside some kind of container,

 

493

00:31:35.080 –> 00:31:37.940

it will begin and seal that container like a bag.

 

494

00:31:38.480 –> 00:31:42.620

It will begin to draw oxygen out and put carbon dioxide in.

 

495

00:31:42.680 –> 00:31:45.460

It will change the atmosphere inside that package.

 

496

00:31:46.480 –> 00:31:50.380

By lowering the level of oxygen in the package and increasing the level of

 

497

00:31:50.380 –> 00:31:51.300

carbon dioxide,

 

498

00:31:51.480 –> 00:31:55.940

you’re actually putting the seaweed to sleep and it at,

 

499

00:31:55.940 –> 00:31:58.020

which then prolongs its life.

 

500

00:31:59.040 –> 00:32:03.940

So you don’t necessarily have to put it back into the salt water if it’s a

 

501

00:32:03.940 –> 00:32:06.020

sealed bag, if it’s a unsealed bag,

 

502

00:32:06.450 –> 00:32:09.420

then you can put it back into the salt water.

 

503

00:32:10.000 –> 00:32:14.980

But that respiration is gonna take place no matter what once you

 

504

00:32:14.980 –> 00:32:18.260

harvest it. And the parameter that can

 

505

00:32:20.200 –> 00:32:24.410

dissect it more than anything else is temperature. The, the, the, um,

 

506

00:32:25.310 –> 00:32:29.130

the colder you keep it, the slower it’s gonna respire or

 

507

00:32:31.280 –> 00:32:32.113

Breathe. Okay.

 

508

00:32:32.390 –> 00:32:36.930

And Mike, about, you know, there, there are some folks, um,

 

509

00:32:37.030 –> 00:32:42.000

in Alaska in particular who, who, who are using tenders to go to.

 

510

00:32:42.220 –> 00:32:45.200

So they are doing what you’re saying, like in terms of the, like a brailer bag,

 

511

00:32:45.200 –> 00:32:48.280

basically, like a bag that, that is, um,

 

512

00:32:49.270 –> 00:32:53.320

that allows some water flow, uh, to the kelp still. Uh,

 

513

00:32:53.460 –> 00:32:54.920

and then so they’re like leaving the,

 

514

00:32:54.940 –> 00:32:58.400

the kelp sitting in the water and then folks are going to going to get it.

 

515

00:32:58.880 –> 00:33:00.560

I don’t, nobody, to my knowledge,

 

516

00:33:00.560 –> 00:33:05.320

nobody has done a side-by-side comparison of like, you go out, you harvest kelp,

 

517

00:33:05.320 –> 00:33:08.050

some of it you put in, uh,

 

518

00:33:08.750 –> 00:33:12.210

the like vented totes on land. And some of them you,

 

519

00:33:12.210 –> 00:33:16.610

some of it you put in a brailer bag and you look at it all in two days and see

 

520

00:33:16.610 –> 00:33:19.610

like, what did better. I don’t think anyone’s done a side-by-side comparison,

 

521

00:33:20.310 –> 00:33:24.930

but I can see some ways in which the brailer bag situation makes a lot of sense.

 

522

00:33:25.510 –> 00:33:29.650

You know, uh, salt water, like ocean water has oxygen dissolved in it,

 

523

00:33:29.670 –> 00:33:33.930

so it is still getting access to oxygen. It’s also, you’re relieving the weight,

 

524

00:33:33.990 –> 00:33:35.850

so it’s not getting, one of the things that happens,

 

525

00:33:35.940 –> 00:33:39.490

we’ve seen if you put the seaweed into huge containers on land,

 

526

00:33:39.590 –> 00:33:43.970

is that the weight of the seaweed just like crushes it and removes access to

 

527

00:33:43.990 –> 00:33:46.810

oxygen for the kelp actually in the middle first.

 

528

00:33:46.810 –> 00:33:49.210

People think that the kelp on the bottom that does the worst,

 

529

00:33:49.210 –> 00:33:53.090

and it’s actually the kelp in the middle ’cause it’s so compacted and has no

 

530

00:33:53.290 –> 00:33:56.690

access to oxygen at all. So, you know,

 

531

00:33:57.920 –> 00:34:01.770

anecdotally people have had success with, with the method you’re talking about,

 

532

00:34:01.830 –> 00:34:03.650

but I don’t know that anyone’s done a side by side.

 

533

00:34:05.080 –> 00:34:06.370

Okay. Thank you. Good stuff.

 

534

00:34:07.800 –> 00:34:12.650

Yeah. And you had another question, Mike, about harvesting during raining.

 

535

00:34:13.580 –> 00:34:17.050

Would you consider that little amount of water to lead to blistering? Yes.

 

536

00:34:17.110 –> 00:34:18.170

We have heard that, that,

 

537

00:34:18.170 –> 00:34:21.090

that even that small amount of water can lead to blistering if it just sits

 

538

00:34:21.090 –> 00:34:21.970

there on top.

 

539

00:34:23.240 –> 00:34:24.073

Okay.

 

540

00:34:24.900 –> 00:34:29.880

Um, and then Evie had a follow up question about whether removing kelp from the

 

541

00:34:29.880 –> 00:34:31.520

freshwater rinse and halter during the blistering.

 

542

00:34:31.520 –> 00:34:36.160

Did we drain it or quickly rinse it with salt water? Jeff, do you remember?

 

543

00:34:36.160 –> 00:34:37.400

Which? Which we did.

 

544

00:34:38.150 –> 00:34:38.983

We just drained it.

 

545

00:34:40.240 –> 00:34:41.073

You just drained it.

 

546

00:34:46.080 –> 00:34:49.030

There was also a question on, um,

 

547

00:34:49.780 –> 00:34:52.030

when the consumer eats it is, it’s still alive.

 

548

00:34:52.850 –> 00:34:57.030

If you market something as fresh, then yes,

 

549

00:34:57.460 –> 00:35:02.130

it’s still alive. It’s still consuming oxygen,

 

550

00:35:02.140 –> 00:35:05.250

still giving off carbon dioxide. You can’t,

 

551

00:35:05.790 –> 00:35:07.770

you can’t call it fresh if it’s not

 

552

00:35:11.670 –> 00:35:14.650

Great. Um,

 

553

00:35:16.960 –> 00:35:17.710

okay.

 

554

00:35:17.710 –> 00:35:22.250

Andrew asked whether we looked at replacing with any other salt

 

555

00:35:22.280 –> 00:35:26.280

solutions like potassium chloride.

 

556

00:35:28.570 –> 00:35:29.870

Do you have any thoughts on that, Jeff?

 

557

00:35:31.540 –> 00:35:33.960

Uh, for this experiment, we did not.

 

558

00:35:34.500 –> 00:35:38.880

We used typical table salt, salt sodium chloride.

 

559

00:35:40.250 –> 00:35:42.670

Um, we certainly could look at that at,

 

560

00:35:42.730 –> 00:35:45.190

at some point in time and it’s probably worth doing it,

 

561

00:35:45.610 –> 00:35:48.910

but that was outside the scope of this particular experiment.

 

562

00:35:55.280 –> 00:35:58.550

Great. And then my,

 

563

00:36:02.140 –> 00:36:07.030

when during sanitizer dips, did you assess how easy it was over time?

 

564

00:36:07.450 –> 00:36:10.350

So could these procedures realistically and effectively be achieved at

 

565

00:36:10.350 –> 00:36:11.183

commercial scales

 

566

00:36:12.830 –> 00:36:17.080

With the sanitizers? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, um, the p a a,

 

567

00:36:17.080 –> 00:36:20.960

which is very commonly used in the fresh produce industry,

 

568

00:36:21.900 –> 00:36:25.640

um, this could be done whether you, you know,

 

569

00:36:25.660 –> 00:36:30.160

you do a batch operation where you’re dipping it into the sanitizer for so many

 

570

00:36:30.160 –> 00:36:31.920

seconds and then you’re taking it out.

 

571

00:36:32.300 –> 00:36:36.680

Or if you have a trough where the water’s running through it and the sanitizer

 

572

00:36:36.740 –> 00:36:40.680

is in there being recirculated, these can, the you,

 

573

00:36:40.750 –> 00:36:45.290

what we found with sanitize, you could easily scale it up and,

 

574

00:36:45.390 –> 00:36:50.290

and in most almost all fresh processing facilities for fruits and vegetables,

 

575

00:36:50.780 –> 00:36:53.690

these kinds of equipment are already in place.

 

576

00:36:59.160 –> 00:36:59.993

Thanks, Jeff.

 

577

00:37:00.410 –> 00:37:04.300

This is Eric from QF Fresh. Um, expanding on, expanding on that. Um,

 

578

00:37:05.570 –> 00:37:10.160

we also saw the biggest release of that iodine almost

 

579

00:37:10.160 –> 00:37:13.720

immediately. So we tested at kind of varying times and we,

 

580

00:37:13.720 –> 00:37:15.400

and we continued the testing over time,

 

581

00:37:15.900 –> 00:37:20.160

but we did see that biggest iodine release kind of immediately. Um,

 

582

00:37:20.460 –> 00:37:25.200

and so that does feed into, um, the time that you’d put it in a wash water. So,

 

583

00:37:25.260 –> 00:37:27.760

so I do think that it would be pretty effective.

 

584

00:37:37.260 –> 00:37:41.210

Great. Thank you. Um, Adrian, you are raising your hand.

 

585

00:37:41.210 –> 00:37:42.690

Would you like to come off mute and ask a question?

 

586

00:37:44.130 –> 00:37:46.590

Hi. Um, I’m just wondering, uh,

 

587

00:37:46.590 –> 00:37:51.190

whether you have a priority in your mind regarding, uh, you know, the,

 

588

00:37:51.190 –> 00:37:54.710

the concentration of sodium or the, um,

 

589

00:37:55.590 –> 00:37:56.423

concentration of iodine.

 

590

00:37:56.550 –> 00:38:00.030

’cause obviously you’re using slightly different treatments in terms of salt,

 

591

00:38:00.410 –> 00:38:02.790

uh, you know, diff the different starting points.

 

592

00:38:02.970 –> 00:38:05.430

So did you have a process in mind how that would work?

 

593

00:38:05.640 –> 00:38:09.750

Would you remove salt first and then, uh, move to the,

 

594

00:38:09.770 –> 00:38:12.350

the iodine or iodine first and then move to the salt?

 

595

00:38:15.270 –> 00:38:16.370

For, for me, um,

 

596

00:38:16.550 –> 00:38:20.130

the ideal solution would be to find something that works for both at the same

 

597

00:38:20.130 –> 00:38:23.210

time. Um, right. I, I think it would be, I,

 

598

00:38:23.290 –> 00:38:27.570

I think it would start to get kind of too processed if we had to use,

 

599

00:38:28.340 –> 00:38:31.410

let’s for say, for example, p a a to get the iodine out,

 

600

00:38:31.410 –> 00:38:34.810

and then we had to use a step down method of salt concentration to,

 

601

00:38:34.830 –> 00:38:38.960

to help pull salt out, um, or something else active. Um,

 

602

00:38:39.470 –> 00:38:43.440

obviously that might be necessary to really get a fresh product at the end of

 

603

00:38:43.440 –> 00:38:43.640

the day.

 

604

00:38:43.640 –> 00:38:47.720

But the ideal solution in my mind would be finding something that kind of does

 

605

00:38:47.720 –> 00:38:49.320

it all at once, um, right,

 

606

00:38:49.320 –> 00:38:54.200

without kind of affecting too much the rigidity or pulling too many nutrients

 

607

00:38:54.200 –> 00:38:58.720

out of the product. Because, you know, our theory on this and, um,

 

608

00:38:58.820 –> 00:39:01.360

the reason that we tested what we did was that we were trying to find,

 

609

00:39:01.360 –> 00:39:02.800

like Sam mentioned, um,

 

610

00:39:03.150 –> 00:39:06.080

kind of minimally processed type of product that we could,

 

611

00:39:06.080 –> 00:39:08.640

that you could do really simply kind of at a processor. Um,

 

612

00:39:09.300 –> 00:39:13.480

and we did find some, some, some effect and some pulling out, but I,

 

613

00:39:13.520 –> 00:39:15.800

I don’t think it was enough. Um, the,

 

614

00:39:15.980 –> 00:39:18.320

the p a a did have a very fascinating effect,

 

615

00:39:18.400 –> 00:39:22.240

I thought on the iodine release because there was a lot of it coming out. It,

 

616

00:39:22.300 –> 00:39:25.800

it was really the only one that I could pull that I got iodine out. Um,

 

617

00:39:26.180 –> 00:39:30.730

and also the seaweed had a, uh, the bio load on it I think was really,

 

618

00:39:30.730 –> 00:39:35.090

really high. Um, it, it really rapidly depleted our ozone, for example, in,

 

619

00:39:35.090 –> 00:39:36.250

in the containers that we tested.

 

620

00:39:36.750 –> 00:39:40.890

And so there’s also kind of a bio load combination that you kind of need to,

 

621

00:39:41.190 –> 00:39:45.090

you need to oxidize the product, you need to force it to release, um,

 

622

00:39:45.090 –> 00:39:48.690

some salt and semi iodine while at the same time not over oxidizing it and

 

623

00:39:48.690 –> 00:39:50.890

making it release everything. Um, and,

 

624

00:39:50.890 –> 00:39:52.730

and kind of turning to mush at the end of the day.

 

625

00:39:52.830 –> 00:39:54.650

And so when we did that testing,

 

626

00:39:54.790 –> 00:39:58.170

we didn’t kind of follow that through to shelf life. Um,

 

627

00:39:58.590 –> 00:40:02.850

but based off of what I saw, I I think the methods that we tested, um,

 

628

00:40:03.250 –> 00:40:08.130

wouldn’t really render it, uh, in a not fresh product that it, it’s, it,

 

629

00:40:08.130 –> 00:40:11.410

it was acting kind of exactly like a fresh product still after we got done with

 

630

00:40:11.410 –> 00:40:15.010

it, which was really cool. Um, but I don’t think it did enough. And,

 

631

00:40:15.030 –> 00:40:18.010

and so it’s finding that happy medium. So if you look at,

 

632

00:40:18.590 –> 00:40:22.450

if you compare kelp to I think kind of any other fruit or veg, I,

 

633

00:40:22.490 –> 00:40:23.450

I call it the prestige.

 

634

00:40:23.450 –> 00:40:25.650

There’s a magic trick to every single one of these things.

 

635

00:40:25.990 –> 00:40:28.810

And once you hit the right magic trick, it works almost every time.

 

636

00:40:28.950 –> 00:40:33.570

And what I mean by that is there’s kind of a proper storage temp and humidity

 

637

00:40:34.070 –> 00:40:38.730

and processing, um, that render it a fresh product at the end of the day.

 

638

00:40:39.030 –> 00:40:43.210

And once you find kind of the correct, um, avenues and the correct test to do,

 

639

00:40:43.600 –> 00:40:47.410

they, they work like pretty much every time as long as, um, the,

 

640

00:40:47.470 –> 00:40:51.370

the starting kelp is at kind of a certain level, um, of quality.

 

641

00:40:52.030 –> 00:40:56.570

And so the goal would be to find that kind of goldilock zone, I call it. Um,

 

642

00:40:56.590 –> 00:41:01.290

trying to find the, the right test to release enough without making it too,

 

643

00:41:01.590 –> 00:41:04.890

um, without, you know, pulling out nutritional values and,

 

644

00:41:04.890 –> 00:41:06.770

and other pro problems down the line.

 

645

00:41:12.940 –> 00:41:17.170

Awesome. Thank you Eric. Um, Michael asked,

 

646

00:41:17.350 –> 00:41:21.450

did we look at what other minerals and nutrients we lost as a result of the

 

647

00:41:21.450 –> 00:41:25.170

various, uh, water dips? We did not. That is, uh,

 

648

00:41:25.360 –> 00:41:28.990

Yeah, that, unfortunately that wasn’t a part of this, unfortunately. Yeah,

 

649

00:41:29.210 –> 00:41:32.350

it wasn’t a part of this study design, but we, we have, and,

 

650

00:41:32.350 –> 00:41:34.760

and I don’t know know, Sam, what you’ve shared or what you’ve put together,

 

651

00:41:34.780 –> 00:41:38.240

but we have done a pretty comprehensive lit search and did kind of find,

 

652

00:41:38.780 –> 00:41:39.800

you know, your calciums,

 

653

00:41:39.800 –> 00:41:43.200

your irons were the first to kind of come out along with, um,

 

654

00:41:43.300 –> 00:41:45.800

the rest of kind of salt, for example. Um,

 

655

00:41:46.580 –> 00:41:50.440

and then following some truity and some other problems. So we are aware of it,

 

656

00:41:50.460 –> 00:41:52.080

but we didn’t test it as a part of this.

 

657

00:41:57.100 –> 00:42:00.940

I had a few internet connections at, uh, problems at the end of that, but no,

 

658

00:42:00.940 –> 00:42:01.773

thank you.

 

659

00:42:08.760 –> 00:42:13.540

Um, Mike, you’d ask about whether the blistering, uh, is,

 

660

00:42:13.560 –> 00:42:15.140

you said it’s aesthetically displeasing,

 

661

00:42:15.140 –> 00:42:18.900

but if the kelp is grounded to a powder, does it matter? I would say the,

 

662

00:42:19.080 –> 00:42:23.780

the answer to that is we don’t know. Basically, you know, we, or the,

 

663

00:42:23.840 –> 00:42:28.740

the suggestion that folks look at the nutrients before blistering and after

 

664

00:42:28.740 –> 00:42:31.020

blistering, we don’t really have a great sense of what,

 

665

00:42:31.530 –> 00:42:35.140

what else is happening as the blistering occurs. It’s clearly a,

 

666

00:42:35.220 –> 00:42:38.180

a stress response, but it is,

 

667

00:42:38.360 –> 00:42:41.740

is it releasing nutrients or otherwise degrading?

 

668

00:42:42.570 –> 00:42:46.660

Does blistered kelp have a lower shelf life than

 

669

00:42:47.800 –> 00:42:50.860

un blistered kelp? We don’t have the answer to those things. So I think I would,

 

670

00:42:51.920 –> 00:42:52.753

um,

 

671

00:42:52.790 –> 00:42:56.340

wanna do a little bit more research just before I said definitively whether it

 

672

00:42:56.340 –> 00:42:58.380

does or doesn’t have a longer term impact.

 

673

00:43:01.120 –> 00:43:04.340

Uh, this is Eric. I turned my video off. Hopefully you guys can hear me better.

 

674

00:43:04.680 –> 00:43:05.513

Um,

 

675

00:43:05.600 –> 00:43:09.850

my guess would be it probably once you kind of grind it up,

 

676

00:43:09.910 –> 00:43:13.490

my guess would be it wouldn’t be that much different. Um, the, the,

 

677

00:43:13.510 –> 00:43:18.050

the kind of blistering in the stress response we found seemed to be the seaweed

 

678

00:43:18.050 –> 00:43:21.330

trying to hold onto its nutrients and its moisture, um,

 

679

00:43:21.500 –> 00:43:26.050

while it was basically being abused. And, and, um, if you compare that,

 

680

00:43:26.230 –> 00:43:29.930

for example, to something like powdered spinach, powdered spinach, um,

 

681

00:43:30.080 –> 00:43:33.210

once you get it into a powdered form and kind of takes care of a lot of the

 

682

00:43:33.210 –> 00:43:36.570

problems that the spinach has, so they, they kind of feed, for example,

 

683

00:43:36.940 –> 00:43:41.370

heavy mildew products will go towards powdering, um, and, uh,

 

684

00:43:41.370 –> 00:43:44.810

heavy insect pressure will go towards powders and,

 

685

00:43:44.870 –> 00:43:49.570

and with pretty minimal effect on nutritional. Um, at the end of the day, um,

 

686

00:43:50.230 –> 00:43:54.290

the way I like to think about it is that the plant at the end, uh,

 

687

00:43:54.550 –> 00:43:57.810

is trying to hold onto everything it can. It’s trying to stay alive,

 

688

00:43:57.920 –> 00:44:00.690

it’s trying to continue its processes as best as possible,

 

689

00:44:01.510 –> 00:44:06.490

and it has a shocking kind of level of being able to do that through a lot

 

690

00:44:06.490 –> 00:44:10.290

of different stressors. And so my guess would be, it would be pretty minimal,

 

691

00:44:10.350 –> 00:44:11.930

but it would be, it would need to be tested.

 

692

00:44:16.930 –> 00:44:17.763

Thank you,

 

693

00:44:21.350 –> 00:44:24.000

Mike, you, uh, have asked about freezing.

 

694

00:44:24.180 –> 00:44:27.960

We did not look at freezing at all as part of this, uh, study,

 

695

00:44:28.180 –> 00:44:31.040

but that is actually a great segue to talking about,

 

696

00:44:31.040 –> 00:44:34.440

about our next farmer forum. Um,

 

697

00:44:35.670 –> 00:44:36.550

I guess I’ll, let me,

 

698

00:44:36.650 –> 00:44:40.470

let me pause and just ask if there are any other questions before we move

 

699

00:44:42.040 –> 00:44:44.200

wrapping up. We are still, we still have plenty of time,

 

700

00:44:44.520 –> 00:44:46.120

14 minutes if anyone else have any questions.

 

701

00:44:54.720 –> 00:44:59.210

This is, uh, Eric from Q Fresh again, i, I just wanna, um, put it in context.

 

702

00:44:59.590 –> 00:45:03.330

So for anyone that wasn’t on the call that Sam mentioned last year,

 

703

00:45:03.400 –> 00:45:05.170

what we did last year with, um,

 

704

00:45:05.280 –> 00:45:08.530

with Kelp was that we looked at the fresh aspects of kelp.

 

705

00:45:08.870 –> 00:45:11.930

And so we took kelp that was harvested on the East coast,

 

706

00:45:12.310 –> 00:45:14.530

and we looked at respiration rates.

 

707

00:45:14.550 –> 00:45:18.410

So we looked at that several different times throughout the season and kind of

 

708

00:45:18.410 –> 00:45:20.290

how the product did in packaging.

 

709

00:45:20.550 –> 00:45:23.930

And then we also did some kind of rudimentary shelf life studies inside of

 

710

00:45:23.930 –> 00:45:28.090

packaging, basically seeing, hey, does kelp act like, uh,

 

711

00:45:28.190 –> 00:45:31.330

fruits and vegetables or, or, or does it act completely independently?

 

712

00:45:31.910 –> 00:45:36.690

And what we found and what led to the research that we did this year was

 

713

00:45:36.690 –> 00:45:41.650

that it had a phenomenal shelf life in, in a modified atmosphere package, um,

 

714

00:45:42.410 –> 00:45:44.370

14 plus days of shelf life in a,

 

715

00:45:44.370 –> 00:45:49.130

in a package at kind of typical cold chain that you would look at for like a bag

 

716

00:45:49.130 –> 00:45:53.090

spinach. And, and so that’s what led into the, the studies that we did on this.

 

717

00:45:53.510 –> 00:45:57.730

And, um, I, I think Sam has that available, um, to share,

 

718

00:45:58.230 –> 00:46:03.210

but I think pretty remarkable results on the shelf life side. And so to me it’s,

 

719

00:46:03.240 –> 00:46:06.330

it’s figuring out can we lower the salt, can we lower the iodine?

 

720

00:46:06.390 –> 00:46:11.090

Can we get some of the biofouling out while still keeping it in that good shelf

 

721

00:46:11.090 –> 00:46:14.170

life form that we found without doing any of that processing?

 

722

00:46:14.350 –> 00:46:18.170

That’s kind of the end goal for me to understand. And so, um,

 

723

00:46:18.240 –> 00:46:21.650

that was some of the research that we did last year that kind of fed into to

 

724

00:46:21.650 –> 00:46:22.483

what we did this year.

 

725

00:46:26.810 –> 00:46:30.180

Thanks, Eric. That’s great context. Um, Evie,

 

726

00:46:32.500 –> 00:46:34.950

Yeah, thanks Sam. I just wanted to, um,

 

727

00:46:35.420 –> 00:46:39.270

respond to Mike’s question about freezing. We have, um,

 

728

00:46:39.650 –> 00:46:43.270

frozen kelp as a way to, um,

 

729

00:46:43.740 –> 00:46:47.910

suspend the freshness before drawing it for the last two seasons.

 

730

00:46:48.370 –> 00:46:52.960

And what we found is, um, in terms of the,

 

731

00:46:54.300 –> 00:46:59.080

the qualities that we can see, we haven’t tested nutrient difference between,

 

732

00:46:59.620 –> 00:47:04.440

um, directly dried kelp versus frozen, then dried kelp. Um,

 

733

00:47:04.580 –> 00:47:09.320

but in terms of the other qualities of smell, taste, appearance,

 

734

00:47:09.500 –> 00:47:13.800

um, we don’t see, um, a big difference.

 

735

00:47:14.060 –> 00:47:16.800

We don’t see a difference in the kelp that we’ve frozen.

 

736

00:47:17.270 –> 00:47:21.840

What I will say is that it’s more difficult to handle, um, once it’s frozen,

 

737

00:47:21.980 –> 00:47:23.720

it comes, once it’s thawed, it’s,

 

738

00:47:23.750 –> 00:47:28.520

it’s more stuck together and it’s a little bit, um, more difficult to get into,

 

739

00:47:28.820 –> 00:47:33.120

um, the dryer and take the next step.

 

740

00:47:36.850 –> 00:47:41.340

Okay, thank you for that. Mm-hmm. Sam,

 

741

00:47:41.420 –> 00:47:42.253

I got one more.

 

742

00:47:43.640 –> 00:47:44.330

Go ahead.

 

743

00:47:44.330 –> 00:47:47.100

Yeah, I think you covered all the steps, but could you maybe recap,

 

744

00:47:47.240 –> 00:47:51.540

so if I wanna save a small portion of my, um, harvest for,

 

745

00:47:51.960 –> 00:47:55.620

to set for, to be fresh and to deliver to restaurants,

 

746

00:47:56.570 –> 00:47:59.340

what would that process look like in terms of, you know,

 

747

00:47:59.340 –> 00:48:02.020

harvesting blanching or otherwise, um,

 

748

00:48:03.300 –> 00:48:06.500

stabilizing and then packaging such that, you know,

 

749

00:48:06.520 –> 00:48:10.980

it would last a couple of days until I can get it there or while they use it.

 

750

00:48:11.980 –> 00:48:15.200

Can, is that a easy, is that fairly easy to kind of recap that?

 

751

00:48:16.660 –> 00:48:21.110

Yeah. Um, this is not intended to be a start to finish process,

 

752

00:48:21.290 –> 00:48:25.150

but we can kind of use it to, to, to talk through. Um,

 

753

00:48:26.140 –> 00:48:26.973

yeah, so,

 

754

00:48:29.040 –> 00:48:32.860

so first and foremost, you know,

 

755

00:48:32.920 –> 00:48:37.820

if you’re selling it for food, you, you do need to have a, um,

 

756

00:48:38.820 –> 00:48:41.700

a, a plan for how you’re gonna keep that food safe the whole time. And again,

 

757

00:48:41.760 –> 00:48:44.020

sea Grant has a ton of great resources and Michael,

 

758

00:48:44.140 –> 00:48:46.500

I see that if you’re still on and if you wanna drop,

 

759

00:48:46.960 –> 00:48:49.980

you wanna drop anything in the chat about this Sea Grants resources on the food

 

760

00:48:49.980 –> 00:48:53.540

safety side, that would be awesome. Um, there, there, you know,

 

761

00:48:53.560 –> 00:48:56.300

you will need to keep it clean, keep everything on your boat clean, you know,

 

762

00:48:56.300 –> 00:48:59.300

have a plan for how that’s all gonna be handled, same, same as you would with,

 

763

00:48:59.300 –> 00:49:01.740

with shellfish or any other kind of food. Um,

 

764

00:49:04.200 –> 00:49:08.540

the, uh, you know, as far as the physical handling goes,

 

765

00:49:08.640 –> 00:49:13.100

you’re gonna wanna harvest on these days with, with cooler air temperatures,

 

766

00:49:13.170 –> 00:49:16.740

prevent direct sunlight, contact fresh water contact,

 

767

00:49:17.000 –> 00:49:21.660

and try to keep the kelp fluffy. That is not a technical term. That is,

 

768

00:49:22.010 –> 00:49:25.780

that is what everyone in the industry agrees. And, and as we’ve just seen,

 

769

00:49:25.850 –> 00:49:28.980

it’s about, it’s about that ventilation, that access to air.

 

770

00:49:29.040 –> 00:49:33.700

So you’re gonna wanna keep it with access to air as much as possible. Um,

 

771

00:49:33.880 –> 00:49:38.060

so that means ventilated storage containers, perforated plastic bags,

 

772

00:49:39.320 –> 00:49:42.500

um, perforated bins with a plastic shroud with little holes punched in it,

 

773

00:49:42.740 –> 00:49:46.620

whatever. But it’s gotta be this like sweet spot of cold

 

774

00:49:52.320 –> 00:49:56.730

sitting, standing water, definitely not standing. Um, and,

 

775

00:49:56.750 –> 00:49:59.010

and that’s really it. Like, you know, there,

 

776

00:49:59.010 –> 00:50:03.170

there is not that much as a raw agricultural product that you need to do other

 

777

00:50:03.170 –> 00:50:06.410

than keeping it cold and keeping it clean. Um,

 

778

00:50:06.710 –> 00:50:11.190

in terms of getting it directly to, to chefs,

 

779

00:50:11.690 –> 00:50:14.230

um, you know, there, uh,

 

780

00:50:14.730 –> 00:50:17.390

are some food safety considerations around, you know,

 

781

00:50:17.390 –> 00:50:19.830

making sure people know that, that it,

 

782

00:50:19.860 –> 00:50:23.390

that it is raw and that they may wanna cook it. Um, but

 

783

00:50:25.100 –> 00:50:28.240

it, it is not a complicated, a complicated process.

 

784

00:50:31.200 –> 00:50:33.410

Okay, thank you. Michael, I don’t know if you, is Michael still on?

 

785

00:50:33.410 –> 00:50:34.330

Does he wanna say anything else?

 

786

00:50:35.380 –> 00:50:37.280

Uh, sure I can chime in.

 

787

00:50:37.360 –> 00:50:41.280

I did put a link to the seaweed resources that we have through New York Sea

 

788

00:50:41.280 –> 00:50:42.760

Grant. You can also find a bunch of others,

 

789

00:50:42.860 –> 00:50:47.240

not necessarily all safety specific on the Seaweed Hub website. Um,

 

790

00:50:47.940 –> 00:50:51.040

but we’ve been doing a lot of work on better understanding the regulatory

 

791

00:50:51.040 –> 00:50:54.640

framework around bringing seaweeds to market and as well as understanding the

 

792

00:50:54.640 –> 00:50:58.960

hazards associated with those and the controls so that the emerging industry can

 

793

00:50:58.960 –> 00:51:02.400

effectively develop food safety plans to address the various, um,

 

794

00:51:02.430 –> 00:51:04.200

hazards associated with seaweeds.

 

795

00:51:04.680 –> 00:51:08.160

I think the biggest sticking point has been the environmental chemicals, um,

 

796

00:51:08.160 –> 00:51:11.520

because there aren’t standards in place, understand what are the thresholds,

 

797

00:51:11.520 –> 00:51:15.600

what should we be testing for, how much should we be testing for? Uh,

 

798

00:51:15.600 –> 00:51:18.720

we did just put out one, uh, a guides specific for New York,

 

799

00:51:18.920 –> 00:51:21.600

although it might be relevant outside of New York. You’ll just have to look, uh,

 

800

00:51:21.600 –> 00:51:26.360

work with your agencies to determine what particular chemicals are of

 

801

00:51:26.960 –> 00:51:31.440

relevance in your waters, um, because it’s not the same from place to place. Um,

 

802

00:51:31.500 –> 00:51:35.160

but some of the more general ones were taken from kind of a global analysis of

 

803

00:51:35.160 –> 00:51:35.560

what are the,

 

804

00:51:35.560 –> 00:51:39.480

the major food safety hazards that have been associated with seaweeds. Um,

 

805

00:51:40.020 –> 00:51:42.760

you know, and I think it does need to remain on your minds. ’cause the,

 

806

00:51:42.760 –> 00:51:45.000

the big thing is that you’re, you’re talking about quality,

 

807

00:51:45.060 –> 00:51:47.440

but it’s not a quality product if it’s not safe to eat.

 

808

00:51:47.580 –> 00:51:51.120

So safety and quality are really kind of tied in there and linked. Um,

 

809

00:51:51.180 –> 00:51:52.360

so making sure that you’re,

 

810

00:51:52.360 –> 00:51:55.720

you’re keeping that in mind and understanding that you’re working with a food,

 

811

00:51:55.980 –> 00:51:58.440

um, when you’re harvesting and handling these products.

 

812

00:52:04.050 –> 00:52:05.760

Thank you, Michael. Appreciate it.

 

813

00:52:09.970 –> 00:52:13.020

Okay, well thank you for all the awesome questions, guys.

 

814

00:52:13.020 –> 00:52:17.020

That was really great and all the chiming in of other folks to answer it.

 

815

00:52:17.020 –> 00:52:21.740

This is exactly what we hoped farmer forums would be like. So appreciate it.

 

816

00:52:22.600 –> 00:52:27.380

Um, so speaking of freezing, our next, uh,

 

817

00:52:27.460 –> 00:52:30.780

farmer forum is going to be November 9th, and

 

818

00:52:31.470 –> 00:52:33.740

We’re gonna be talking about

 

819

00:52:34.820 –> 00:52:39.020

Stabilization. Uh, and so we’re gonna talk about current and emerging methods,

 

820

00:52:39.480 –> 00:52:41.020

um, uh, to talk about freezing.

 

821

00:52:41.480 –> 00:52:44.820

And if there is anyone who knows about freezing at scale, it is, it is them,

 

822

00:52:44.820 –> 00:52:47.460

that is their, the, the primary way that they,

 

823

00:52:47.600 –> 00:52:50.660

the first thing that they do before getting into any of their other processing.

 

824

00:52:51.160 –> 00:52:53.900

Um, we’re also gonna have folks talking about drying, um,

 

825

00:52:54.640 –> 00:52:57.340

and then some emerging methods like chemical stabilization.

 

826

00:52:58.240 –> 00:53:01.940

And then the last farmer form of the year is about producer cooperatives,

 

827

00:53:01.940 –> 00:53:06.100

and that will be on December 14th. Um, in, as we head into 2024,

 

828

00:53:06.100 –> 00:53:08.500

we’re going to get, be getting back into the water. Um,

 

829

00:53:08.500 –> 00:53:11.700

our director of training and support, Lindsay Olsson will be back at that point.

 

830

00:53:11.800 –> 00:53:13.020

And we will be, uh,

 

831

00:53:13.050 –> 00:53:17.800

getting into nitty gritty details about farming and then,

 

832

00:53:18.220 –> 00:53:22.600

um, harvesting as we head into the spring. And I did also wanna call out,

 

833

00:53:22.840 –> 00:53:26.600

especially because today’s topic with a little bit of a crossover topic between

 

834

00:53:26.600 –> 00:53:28.800

farming and, and post harvest

 

835

00:53:30.660 –> 00:53:31.760

and processing,

 

836

00:53:32.510 –> 00:53:37.280

that we are launching a new series in 2024 that

 

837

00:53:37.380 –> 00:53:41.640

is for folks who are about, uh, you know,

 

838

00:53:41.640 –> 00:53:46.400

everything from product development to marketing products. And, um,

 

839

00:53:46.980 –> 00:53:49.680

we really hope that some of you will come check out this series as well.

 

840

00:53:49.740 –> 00:53:52.640

It starts in February and runs through August.

 

841

00:53:55.000 –> 00:53:59.200

And that’s it. So thank you everyone for coming and, uh,

 

842

00:53:59.200 –> 00:54:03.720

we hope to see you on the Hub and at our future webinars.

 

843

00:54:03.720 –> 00:54:04.553

Thank you so much.

 

844

00:54:05.510 –> 00:54:07.470

Thanks, Adam. Thank you.

 

845

00:54:09.900 –> 00:54:10.370

Thank you.