Seaweed Is the New Oil: Mari Granström Builds Origin by Ocean

Written By Lizette Couto

Mari Granstrom, founder and “chief executive activist” of Origin By Ocean, joins the Grow Everything podcast to explain how massive seaweed blooms, driven by nutrient pollution and eutrophication, can become a regenerative feedstock for bio-based and biodegradable chemicals. Mari shares how a career in industrial biochemistry, plus years of scuba diving and growing up near the polluted Baltic Sea, shaped their mission to transform invasive sargassum into high-performance ingredients that can replace many oil-derived inputs in everyday products.

The conversation covers the scale of the sargassum problem across the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, how Origin By Ocean processes seaweed into “white powders” customers can use in cosmetics and nutraceuticals, and why the future of climate entrepreneurship needs diversity, integrity, and business models that restore ecosystems instead of extracting from them.

Chapters:

  • (00:00:00) Seaweed is the oil we never used

  • (00:01:00) Karl’s Hidden Brain live show story + talking to strangers

  • (00:03:00) Spring break travel + staying plugged into biotech

  • (00:04:05) Pfizer Oscars ad: what “breakthrough” messaging gets right

  • (00:08:15) Echo Biotech + NYC’s biotech network, from biomaterials to investing

  • (00:11:10) Meet Mari Granstrom and Origin By Ocean (how they met at Climate Week)

  • (00:14:00) Mari’s path: biochemical expertise inside big chemical companies

  • (00:16:25) Eutrophication 101 + spotting seaweed blooms as future biomass

  • (00:19:20) The sargassum crisis: 40–60M tons/year in the Caribbean + Gulf

  • (00:21:00) Is this just a Gulf issue? Baltic Sea vs “real oceans”

  • (00:23:00) Turning research into a real biorefinery business

  • (00:25:00) “Chief executive activist”: science, entrepreneurship, advocacy as one role

  • (00:28:05) How seaweed can replace oil-derived functionality in everyday products

  • (00:30:10) Regenerative value chains vs ESG (doing less harm vs net-positive)

  • (00:33:00) Why diversity (backgrounds, not just demographics) drives better solutions

  • (00:34:00) Future-casting: where marine biomass will (and won’t) make sense

  • (00:37:00) Quickfire: ocean’s passive-aggressive text, algae blooms, nudibranchs

  • (00:40:00) Demo products: cosmetics, hair growth, makeup + showing customers potential

  • (00:41:00) Wrap-up reflections (seaweed as feedstock, alternate history)

Episode Links:

Lizette Couto
Previous

Dare to Commercialize: Damien Perriman’s eXoZymes Playbook
Next

From Beer to Billions: Kevin Wenger Scales Microbes at Lallemand