It's a big leap from working as an architect to becoming an artisan food producer, but three years ago Claire O'Sullivan swapped her drawing board for the shores of Bantry Bay where she now harvests the seaweed that goes into her range of WASi (Wild Atlantic Seaweed Ireland) pestos.
“Seaweed is considered the most nutritionally dense form of vegetation on the planet,” says O’Sullivan who has also studied complementary medicine and is convinced by the health benefits of this natural superfood. “It has twice the vitamin C of oranges, contains 56 minerals and trace elements, has 10 times more calcium than cows’ milk and is a great source of vitamin B12 for anyone on a vegan diet.
"The idea for a commercial product happened in a most organic way," adds O'Sullivan whose partner, Eli Tanner, is helping her to develop the business while also doing his day job as the skipper of the Whiddy Island ferry. "Eli and I had been experimenting with different flavours of seaweed pesto at home for years and friends and family told us they would be willing to buy it if it were on sale. Unlike some products, our pesto is completely vegan-friendly and our seaweed is hand-harvested rather than mechanically harvested so it is sustainable. We also make all of our products in small batches using only local Irish seaweed."
O’Sullivan says that while people are becoming a lot more aware of the health benefits of eating seaweed, they are often scared of preparing it or using it in their cooking. “Pesto is a very familiar ingredient to many people at this stage so a seaweed pesto that tasted good and could easily be incorporated into everyday cooking seemed like the perfect solution. Our main goal with WASi was to make the goodness of seaweed available to people in a way that is accessible and delicious,” O’Sullivan says.
Locally harvesting
“In terms of our production methods WASi represents a return to the generations-old tradition of locally harvesting seaweed so families could benefit from its nutrients. However, our end product is very contemporary in style and quite different to what people might typically expect from a pesto as each of the flavours has a unique and distinct taste that’s new to the market.”
WASi pesto comes in garlic and lemon, chilli and lemongrass and ginger and sesame flavours and the company’s focus to date has been on getting a foothold in the Irish market mainly through using a distributor that supplies a countrywide network of artisan and health food stores. WASi products are also available in Dublin Airport with other airports to follow and O’Sullivan says the aim is to begin moving into Europe in 2020 followed by Asia.
We made our first official batch of 24 jars on the kitchen table for the Organico wholefood store in Bantry and it flew off the shelf
Development costs to date have been about €50,000 and the company has received a Flag equipment grant from Bord Iascaigh Mhara, mentoring from Cork North West local enterprise office and marketing support from Bucanier, an EU-backed initiative that promotes small businesses in Wales and Ireland's southeast and encourages co-operation and innovation between them. O'Sullivan has also participated in the Enterprise Ireland-backed Excell programme at CIT's Rubicon incubation centre which supports female entrepreneurs with high growth potential business ideas.
“We made our first official batch of 24 jars on the kitchen table for the Organico wholefood store in Bantry and it flew off the shelf and we’ve gone from strength to strength since then,” says O’Sullivan. “So far, we have grown organically through word of mouth and taking part in trade shows and in-store tastings. We will be expanding our marketing campaign to overseas trade shows next year with a view to meeting potential European distributors and customers.”
For now, WASi is concentrating on food and will be extending its range in 2020. However, O’Sullivan is not ruling out broadening the base as the business grows.
