Transcription of Marine Plant-Based University with AlgSeaweed:

Alissa Miky: All right. Thank you so much again for joining to our podcast, Marine Plant-based, you know, podcast. My name is Alissa Miky, and today we are, we would love to introduce Sarah. Sarah, how are you? Where do you based?

Sarah Leung: We are based in Australia, in Melbourne which is like. The other side of the world from you guys. But yeah, like Melbourne got four season in one day and very lucky at the moment it’s sunny.

Alissa Miky: I envy you because like I actually live in LA right now, but it’s, these days it’s so cold and I, I’m looking for like a warm, sunny, you know, countries. Yeah. Like, definitely need to go to Australia. So please tell me more about yourself?
What is your company, and then could you please like explain about your company and your background, everything you want.

Sarah Leung: I started a company back in 2017. Actually, today is our sixth year and two days, so I started it on my 30th birthday, so thank you. So before starting this brand, I was a dietician.
Well, I still am a dietician, but that’s my background. So I was in private practice you know, seeing people with all different type of conditions, chronic and acute conditions. But at some point, you know, after doing it for maybe six, seven years, I realized that I want a bit of a lifestyle change. I still love the fact that, you know, dietician’s skills, dietetic skills are so diverse.

Sarah Leung: You can do different things with it. But my passion is in culinary nutrition is in, you know, cooking is in, you know, teaching people how to. Like, you know, how to use simple ingredients to, you know, enhance the skills and so that they can look after themselves by cooking simpler food, healthier food, you know?

Sarah Leung: And I just really love the practical side of things. And, and you know, my belief is that, you know, you can write so many meal plans, give so many recipes, but it’s actually better more effective if you do the doing. And I need a platform. Like, I didn’t really want a cooking school, but then I want a platform to, to help me do that.

Sarah Leung: And I thought, okay, well, What about a food product? Food product was a great idea because I’m always drawn to beautiful packaging and, you know, dream about one day having my product on the shelf in supermarkets and health food shops and things like that. So I thought, oh, that might be a good angle and, you know, a good, you know, career path to pursue.

Sarah Leung: And seaweed wasn’t the first idea and it came to mind, but The idea came back to, you know, the, going back to the, the, the type of patient that I was seeing and, you know, what kind of conditions that need more attention to and you know, what kind of things that people are not really aware about. And you know, by default a lot of people come to see a dietician for weight loss because that’s, People do they see dietician and think that they’re gonna give them like a magical meal plan and off they go.

Sarah Leung: But I know deep down that you know, losing weight is not just about diet and exercise. There’s so many different factors to it. And I do notice that a lot of my patient that came through the see me have a thyroid condition. So, you know, when you have a sluggish thyroid, you. Metabolism slow down, you feel fatigue and you know, your extremities get cold and that sort of stuff.

Sarah Leung: And that got me thinking, Hey, you know, why? How come so many people have a thyroid issue? And I guess, you know, that is the brand was pretty much a sort of. Stem from like a nutrition direction where, okay, well so many people have thyroid issues. What about iodine? You know, which is a very important mineral for, for thyroid form and production.

Sarah Leung: So I look into the status of iodine deficiency in Australia and I found that, oh, okay, we are a mild iodine deficient nation. And particularly, you know, this is for the general public. And more to that, you said, you know, when you’re pregnant or when you’re breastfeeding, your iodine requirement actually increased, you know, double.

Sarah Leung: So if the general population is not getting enough iodine through their diet, there’s no way a pregnant woman or a breastfeeding woman will get enough unless they, or unless they you know, supplement right. So I guess that’s how the brand started. Okay. People are low in iodine. What food is high in iodine?

Sarah Leung: Okay. Seaweed. Does it fit the bills of, you know, nutritious, delicious, and sustainable? Yes. Yes and yes. And I can sort of see that it is a food that is going to be a little bit more mainstream cuz you know, in Australia we are slow at everything. But obviously seaweed farming and seaweed cultivation has been.

Sarah Leung: Going on for a long time in Southeast Asia, but I can also see a lot of activity going on in America and also in Europe as well. So I thought, well, it will take time. And but you know, this seaweed farming is, is growing and the awareness of seaweed is growing. The whole sustainability side is growing.

Sarah Leung: The nutritional benefit of seaweed awareness is. Eventually it will trickle down to Australia. We’ll finally get it. So, I mean, I just have to have the patience to start of something and, and, and, and give it some time and do the education and, and we’ll be right. You know, being first, first few into the market and things like that.

Sarah Leung: Yeah, and I guess that’s sort of how it started. It was just from like a simple idea. Just gonna use a bit of Australian seaweed that we’re able to source, put it into little jars, turn it into a condiment. And then take it to the farmer’s market to see what happened. Cause I mean, at that point in 2017, a lot of people think about seaweed is just in sushi.

Sarah Leung: You know, when you have those conversations and go, oh, you know, have you had seaweed before? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I had it in sushi or, and then, and, and that progressed to maybe a couple of years later, have you had seaweed before? I was like, oh yeah, yeah. My kids love those nori sheets, snacks and things like that.

Sarah Leung: And then now progress to, you know, 2000. 23 people will be like, have you have sushi? Have you had seaweed before? Yeah, I have it in sushi, I have it in Pokemon Bowl. I put it in my ramen. I, you know, put it in kids’ lunchbox and things like that. So I can see that the awareness of seaweed have increased along the way.

Sarah Leung: Anyway, so go back to the, the, the the product. So we sort of use seaweed As a condiment so people can just sprinkle it like a furry style seasoning. We launched it and then in 2018 I had my first child, so I put the business on hold for a little while, while I found my feet. And then in 2019 we got a couple of really good opportunity in, into getting final to pitch competition and we were a winner of one of them.

Sarah Leung: And I guess that sort of got me some, gimme some momentum to pick up. Built on the brand again in 2020. During Covid, we pretty much stopped the brand and really go back down to building the brand from the ground up, you know, from, you know, how we source the ingredients, what kind of products, what kind of formats from the branding and low.

Sarah Leung: We actually re rebrand it during that time. And we were launch again in 2021, which is the Elk C that you see today. So from, we launched in very small batch in 2000. In 21 from where we are now we are now in, you know, Australia’s very small, so you know, we’re in about, you know, 200 supermarkets along the eastern seaboard of, you know, Australia.

Sarah Leung: We’re in about an extra hundred of health food shops and, you know, small shops. And we also supply to food service you know, restaurants and hotel groups and bakeries and things like that. So that’s where we’re

Alissa Miky: Wow, though, congratulations on only like two, two or three years once we. And you have that massive success.

Alissa Miky: That’s amazing. So what’s the, you know, biggest tip that you, you know, expand your business? So like, what’s the biggest. Tips or there any hints? Because like, you know, as a startup, you know, doing a lot of, you know, negotiating with a lot of retails, it’s a lot of another headache because they’re having like a new regulation and the lot of like rules.

Alissa Miky: Yes. Do you know, how do you, you know, open that door? Did it, was it, was it there any great? I don’t know. I maybe, you know. Good. Is there any people who you meet, who you met? Or is there anything that work hard?

Sarah Leung: Yeah, so I guess, you know, the, the, the, the rebrand one thing that attracts a lot of retailers to start off with is our, you know, brand new color palette.

Sarah Leung: So I usually have a really lovely pink shirt, seaweed brand that is pink. Like green yes. Is almost like a given, you know, all seaweed brand put like a bit of a green in it. But, you know, have a really differentiating color palette. I think that helps we, oh, what is this? So generate a bit of interest.

Sarah Leung: And so that is really good. And in terms of help, we did, you know, we did a couple of accelerator program and this particular one that we did last year actually have relationship with major supermarkets. So, That really helped to have that relationship. So when they’re ready to, you know, look into new innovation products you know, we were front of mind and we submit our form and that was sort of how that happened.

Sarah Leung: And I guess the tip being, I’m not sure in America, I’m sure that no,

Alissa Miky: everybody wanted to listen our, you know, business to, it’s, it doesn’t need Yeah. In an Australia in general.

Sarah Leung: Yeah. But in America, I’m sure that there’s more seaweed brand compared to. But then in Australia, you know, we are one of the first few in the market, so I think that uniqueness and first to market will, you know, get picked up by a supermarket and say, Hey, you know, I, I can see that the seaweed trend is going and, and, and it’s growing.

Sarah Leung: You know, this is a, is a special product that we can offer to the customer. I think they probably like that angle.

Alissa Miky: That’s beautiful. So for the packaging, you said that you choose, you chose like a pinkish color. Why did you, where, when did you that, that the idea came up?

Sarah Leung: Well we got a really talented talented graphic designer that did know our branding.

Sarah Leung: So she actually went through, Like a competitive analysis looking into what the seaweed brand is doing out there. Where they sit in like, like a, like a from an innovation point of view, from a branding point of view, and where’s the gap? And that’s sort of where she identified it. Okay. Well can sort of play that.

Sarah Leung: Gourmet and obviously it, it’s just my personality as well, you know, being pink and I, I love pink and just something a little bit different. So it was through you know, competitive analysis and finding ways, the gap in the market that we can play where is super premium, super gourmet or sort of where, where, where, where does this sit, where, where, where we can fit in.

Sarah Leung: I think that’s sort of where that comes from. Yeah, so I think she had done an amazing job in the branding.

Alissa Miky: That’s great. So how much do you sell for the retail right now?

Sarah Leung: Yeah, so we currently our core range we call the rainbow seaweed. So then the, the rainbow seaweed is a trademark that belongs to our company.

Sarah Leung: So the rainbow seaweed means that there’s five different types of seaweed in there, as you’ll be familiar, there’s so many different type. So we’ve got Atlantic, Nori, Atlantic Sea Letters, Atlantic Dolls. Wing kelp and also Tasmania Akame. So it’s the five that we make it a blend and we call it rainbow series.

Sarah Leung: So that’s our pretty much core range that where we have like a pouch of 40 grand rainbow seaweed flakes that sell in supermarket and retail store. That retail for $16 Australian. So that would be, that’s like

Alissa Miky: a mid midway or a little bit, not too high. Yeah. But it’s a kind of a middle-ish wrench.

Sarah Leung: From the middle high, I would say, you know, where, where it belongs in the supermarket is in the gourmet session.

Sarah Leung: It’s definitely sort of that I, I dunno, how much is it converted to American boss? Like 10, I dunno. And our shakers, which is like a salt and pepper shaker type they’re about $10 retail and they’re three flavors. So one is like a four seasoning where we don’t use bonito because we wanna make it plant-based.

Sarah Leung: But when we put like a chickpea mis. To it. So it’s got a sweet note with, you know, black and white sesame and a little bit of salt, a little bit of sugar, and a rainbow seaweed powder. We have a chili blend, which is again, not Tora. And I make very conscious decision, not cause that’s what everyone knows, but our seaweed chili have chili powder, chili flakes, but a bit of sumac and a bit of black pepper in it.

Sarah Leung: So you’ve got like a peppery aftertaste, which is really, really nice. To put on my soups and stews and pizza and pasta. And the last one is a rainbow seaweed salt. So again, you know, on the market there’s a lot of seaweed salt where you put seaweed back into salt, but dieticians head on seaweed is a great salt substitute, so it doesn’t make sense to put seaweed back into salt, you know.

Sarah Leung: So then the salt that we use is a sodium reduced salt. So then the whole thing is A lot of people are finding ways to cut down salt in their diet, which is, you know, detrimental to our health and the heart, and heart health and, and blood pressure and so forth. So I want to create a product where people know that they need to cut down on salt, but they don’t wanna cut down saltiness.

Sarah Leung: This is a really good alternative that will still give you the flavor, like, you know, give you the saltiness without compromising flavor. I love

Alissa Miky: It and it’s, every flavor sounds too yum. Actually, I couldn’t eat anything today, so you, you make me hungry now.

Sarah Leung: Aw, good. I’m glad.

Alissa Miky: So, for your future plan, I know that you already succeed and congratulations, but for the future plan, what do you want to do?

Alissa Miky: What’s your, you know, goal and what do you wanted to achieve?

Sarah Leung: Yeah, well this year we really want to and I don’t know whether you got the same experience with your brand. It’s seaweed to a lot of people is still a little bit foreign. You knowWe, they think about those slimy things at the beach or they think sushi so.

Sarah Leung: It is a big I guess education piece. And, you know, I realize that putting it in like a seasoning it’s, it’s quite a slow moving category, so you need a lot of education. A lot of, you know, it would take me a long time until we get to where we are. But seaweed is also a premium ingredient for chef food and hospitality to use, and also coming ingredient for, you know, You can incorporate into a lot of product as well.

Sarah Leung: So we are trying to grow those channels. Maybe have some new product as well that people are already familiar with the format, but it’s just, you know, adding sea flavor into it so then they can get the flavor and also get the nutrition as well as growing maybe like the food service part.

Alissa Miky: But how do you educate them? Because like you, you already reached the 200, you know, shops and then of course, like the buyer, they’re like more groomed. They, they pretty understand about the CV benefit. Yes. But do you like try to educate for the end customers because only putting on the shop, it doesn’t make sense.

Alissa Miky: They need, we need to sell the product. Right. Do you have any Yes. Yes, exactly. So what’s the, what do you do in the Australian market right now?

Sarah Leung: Well, actually that was the question that I would ask you cause it looks like you’re doing an amazing job. That is by all means, the most challenging thing to do.

Sarah Leung: Getting on shelf, to be honest, is not the hardest part. And you know, anyone will tell you that because if you have an innovation product, if you have a good concept, people will willing to give it a go. But it’s the consumer, do they get it? You know? So I think that is the million dollar pressure. So we are still, you know, learning how, what is the.

Sarah Leung: The best way. But we are doing, you know, we, our limited budget doing things like influencer reach out, doing in-store sampling you know, making sure that our social media had enough education information and you, yeah, I think, and then, you know, paid ads and, and that sort of stuff, advertising.

Sarah Leung: And yeah, I think that’s probably the main thing. Get Chef behind a brand. That might be, that, that would be a good one as well. So. It’s not easy. But you know, we’re just trying everything now to get the education piece out. Yeah,

Alissa Miky: I, I totally agree with you. So the lucky thing, our company was like, we have super standing product for the candy.

Alissa Miky: And to be honest, we’re more like a ingredient side company. We mostly Cooper cooperate with a finished product such as like, you know, of course food and beverage. We also cooperate with a medical company to create the, you know, medical capsule as well. That’s why. Our own, our main business is a kind of a B2B slash.

Alissa Miky: We have tons of IP, several product such as like, you know, plastic alternative. That’s also our IP as well. Oh wow. That’s so cool. Thank you. So the reason why we’re doing the finished product is again, to educate people. We need to like, you know, yeah. Show the proof and then, you know, people in know most of the, you know, globally, they un they don’t understand how to use what’s the benefit.

Alissa Miky: That’s why we are doing that. Yes. British rot with candy and then also the beverage brand soon. But, cause I feel you, you know, just putting on the shelf is nothing like, you know, we, I don’t have to say nothing. It’s like, it’s of course, it’s a lot of like, tough, but, but, you know, educate people and they try to push people to use them is tough too.

Alissa Miky: So what we do is we actually have our own contents creator team in, in house in our company, and we post like, you know, at least like six. Six types of the video a day in so many platform.

Sarah Leung: Six videos a day. Oh my goodness. That’s impressive.

Alissa Miky: Thank you. So we are just with individual, you know, platform and like there this, these videos for TikTok, these videos for Instagram, these beautiful, wow.

Alissa Miky: Cause every platform has the different preference. So we in past we try to just, you know, copy and paste to the other platform, but it doesn’t work. So now, We have six, you know, videos a day in like a different platform. But of course as a company we cannot put a lot of money on there, so we tried to tweaking a little by little and then use it over on the platform.

Sarah Leung: And do you find that quite effective? Cause I know that you’ve got like a massive tick TikTok following. Thank I would love to learn. How do you build that?

Alissa Miky: Thanks, we have 1 million followers on TikTok right now, and through the TikTok we actually cooperate with Kim K and service suites at the Omy Preen.

Alissa Miky: We were, at that moment, we were the only Asian bid over there. So yes, we had a great traction over there. Wow, thank you. But but the point is, I. I guess one of the biggest lucky thing is we try not to educate people. This is a seaweed base. That was the biggest, you know? Yeah. Yes. That’s why here comes the marine plant base.

Alissa Miky: If we said seaweed, people are gonna say,

Sarah Leung: ah, it’s fish. Oh Yes.

Alissa Miky: That’s why I think we shall use a marine plant base as a common word. Cause marine plant makes you hear that word. It sounds, oh. What exactly and then, oh, sounds like nutrition. Cool idea. So we’re not gonna take any, you know, we’re gonna, we, we just take the, how to say it, trademark and just in case to protect, because I don’t want to use it.

Alissa Miky: But it’s, it doesn’t mean that you cannot use it. No. It’s just protection. For some, somebody manipulate. We don’t want it to do that. Mm-hmm.

Alissa Miky: Open word that we are happy everybody gonna use as a marine plant base, so that people feel that, oh, it’s a nutrition future. Oh, it’s sustainable. Oh, it’s good for society. Oh, let’s do it. Good. We wanted to make, that’s why we’re here, to cooperate together.

Sarah Leung: Yeah, and I heard recently there was a company in Europe where they use seaweed to make tuna like cowe tuna.

Sarah Leung: So it is plant-based tuna. And like in that podcast she was saying the same thing. You know, at the start when they launch it and say, this is a seaweed based tuna. No one buys it. Once they got that out of the name and just say, this is a plant-based tuna. This has happened to one of the ingredients in seaweed.

Sarah Leung: Like they changed the whole messaging and it works so much better. Right. And this is a European co company where, you know, people are not used to eating seaweed. So it was like, you know, to your point about, okay, well people have this. Conception, like of seaweed as being something that is not, is it’s got a negative association to it.

Sarah Leung: But yeah, changing it and, you know, giving it a better name, giving a sexier name that, or even just not mention about it and just sort of say what the product is and then say, oh, what is it? What, what, what’s in it? And get people hooked into the brand and then tell them, oh, actually you see with base, they’ll be like, ah, okay.

Sarah Leung: That might be a better sell. Right.

Alissa Miky: And then and also the pro, I think that one of the problem of the seaweed industry is, is mostly too fishy. Seriously? Yeah. So that, that, that’s why we actually create our own ip. That you don’t feel any fishiness, just the ingredients. Yes. So on that point, you don’t feel any fish and saltiness is, for example, or candy.

Alissa Miky: It’s just a candy or, or beverage. You’re gonna feel just a fruit juice. That’s the point. You, if you wanted to use any, you know, new seaweed powder, you’re always here. Please think about it. Yeah, no, I’ll, oh, please. But the point is, I wanted to, you know, educate people. There’s so many opportunity that even, you know, not just for a sushi, not just for a, I don’t know, gory or kind of, that there’s massive opportunity that you can, we can use for everywhere.

Alissa Miky: So that’s the thing. We wanted to reeducate the customer outside cv that’s, that’s we’re doing. No. Excellent. Thank you. Well, for, sorry I talked too much. This is the opportunity, but I’m like, I love, you know, this kind of a conversation I. So for, we only have like two more minutes. So could you, you know, for the last, you know, comment, do you have anything that you wanted to tell to our listener or readers?

Alissa Miky: Do, do you have any message for them?

Sarah Leung: Well if you are sort of on the verge of wanting to try cwe, but not so sure. I would say just, you know, jump on it. Also to your point, that seaweed is not just in sushi. You can incorporate in literally everything. We have got a seaweed chocolate that we use, like a handmade chocolate, and with like, you know, seaweed sprinkle in it it works really well.

Sarah Leung: So, you know, just be open-minded and try it. And lastly, if you wanna find our. I know that we’re based in Australia, but you can access it on our website, which is elk seaweed com. You can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and yeah, don’t be afraid to reach out as well. Beautiful.

Alissa Miky: Thank you so much for the time, and I cannot wait to meet you in the future.

Sarah Leung: Yeah. Are you coming to any plan to come to Australia at all, Alicia?

Alissa Miky: I wish I could go to Australia, but I, when I was kids, I’ve been so many times for the diving, skip a diving, so Oh, really? Yeah. But thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate it.

Sarah Leung: Thank you so much. Thank you.