In 2009 Simon Ranger, Seagreens' founder, set up an independent, nor-for-profit Foundation for research and education to explore the benefits to health of human food quality seaweed in response to marketplace health concerns.

The Seaweed Health Foundation provides a forum to explore the uses of this natural whole food as an ingredient in the food, health and bodycare industries and in good medical practice.

It will seek to establish and uphold appropriate standards for the harvesting and production of human food quality seaweed in Great Britain and Europe.

Membership of the Foundation is by application for members of the food and healthcare industries, academia, the media and others with a special interest in the subject.

Membership is automatic for Seagreens® Brand Partners.

The developing research agenda will also be available to Members, who it is hoped will involve themselves in those projects which may be of particular scientific and commercial interest to them.

Members will be able to access past research projects and monitor the progress of the current research programme.

The British Government funded a 'Food Innovation' project in 2007 to explore natural alternatives to unhealthy types of fat, sugar and salt in manufactured foods. Seagreens® was chosen as a likely replacement for salt (sodium chloride) which food manufacturers are required to reduce to new maximum levels by 2012.

Following the remarkable success of this initial salt replacement research, the newly-formed Seaweed Health Foundation contributed to further bread trials using Seagreens® to reduce salt in 2009, using baking industry standard models and a 100 panellist organoleptic study at what had then become the Centre for Food Innovation at Sheffield Hallam University in Sheffield, England.

A separate study in obesity, using much higher levels of Seagreens® in bread, found the taste was nonetheless acceptable. The study sought to assess whether Seagreens® would have a satiety effect in overweight male subjects. The research won the 2010 Alpro Foundation Masters Award and was published in February 2012 in the scientific journal Appetite. Please click here for the Abstract and for further information on the paper and the application of Seagreens in weight management please contact Seagreens Information Service.