If you've come across The Shropshire Seaweed Company before, you probably know all about using seaweed as a fertilizer or as an organic compost maker. While this traditional use of seaweed extract is well known, there are new applications for these amazing plants being developed all the time, many of them here in the UK.
You may have read, for example, about the ongoing exploration of seaweed as a biofuel, to help power cars and planes, or of how doctors recently used seaweed to help save a mother who had complications during childbirth. Whilst the widespread application of these pioneering technologies may be some way off - they still have more than a hint of Tomorrow's World about them - there are many seaweed products already on the market, with benefits for you and your family in the here and now.
For example, seaweed now offers a safer alternative for anyone has ever struggled with Oven Pride or any another chemical oven cleaner. The discovery of 'surfactants' - a sort of organic detergent - within the Laminaria Digitata seaweed has redefined what can be achieved using a natural oven cleaner - with performance far beyond the old citrus based options. Developed by Sea-Chem, the Sea Clean Eco Friendly Oven Cleaner was initially developed as an industrial strength degreasing product and as such is now being used widely by professional cleaning franchises as a totally safe oven cleaner - one that can be taken into customers' homes without any health and safety worries.
Seaweed's high nutritional value also makes it incredibly effective during the water purification process. In effect, it's a sort of Red Bull for the bacteria that break effluent and waste down, heightening their activity and allowing them to multiply rapidly. For this reason, seaweed's use in municipal wastewater treatment facilities is growing, but there are domestic applications as well. Over a million UK households are fitted with stand-alone septic tanks. If this is you, you'll know that septic tank problems can cause a significant degree of anxiety. Here, seaweed is providing part of the solution, combining with augmented bacteria to assist in septic tank shock treatment and septic tank maintenance.
Indeed, seaweed's ability to fuel the activity of micro-organisms has led to its wider application in the bioremediation of contaminated soil, such as is found at old gasworks, petrol stations and industrial units. Again, these developments are not without domestic applications, with products such as our own oil stain remover for driveways, drawing on much the same principles. Meanwhile, the use of seaweed in cosmetics and nutrition continues to gather pace here in the UK. You may have read, for example, that in November 2012 the first licence to harvest seaweed for food purposes was awarded in Cornwall.
As a sustainable and green resource, with a unique biology, seaweed will come to play more and more of a role in our everyday lives over the coming years. Hopefully this blog will have opened your eyes to what is already out there.
David Ross, Business Development
Thursday, 17 January 2013
Tuesday, 8 January 2013
The year ahead for The Shropshire Seaweed Company
With 2013 upon us, The Shropshire Seaweed Company would like to wish all our customers and suppliers a very prosperous new year. In this short blog, I'll run through some of the changes we have made since last year.
We are currently ramping up production of our seaweed fertilizer to meet anticipated demand over the coming weeks and months. For our smaller units -- Shropshire Seaweed Growth Enhancer (1 Litre) and Shropshire Seaweed Growth Enhancer trial bottle (500ml + 25% free!), as well as Shropshire Seaweed Compost Accelerator (1 Litre) -- we will again be using the Fulfilled by Amazon program. This basically means that these products are stored on our behalf in Amazon distribution centres across the country and can be delivered free of charge in the UK using super saver delivery or free next-day for Amazon Prime customers. One of the other bonuses of FBA is that customers can combine their Shropshire Seaweed purchases with other products in the Amazon catalogue -- a new pair of gardening gloves or a compost bin, perhaps -- and check out just once. Our customers were extremely positive about this service last year, which is why we are expanding the scope of our FBA offerings in 2013.
Elsewhere, all Shropshire Seaweed orders over £25 now qualify for free-next delivery for most parts of the UK -- a change we have made in response to customers eager to get their seaweed products more quickly! Customers in Northern Ireland, the Scottish Highlands and Islands and Channel Islands get free delivery as well using an economy courier service.
Another minor change we have made is to our payment methods. We now accept Google Wallet on our website, alongside PayPal, which, if you've ever used either of these services, makes the whole checkout process a lot quicker and easier.
The Shropshire Seaweed Company website has also been completely redesigned over the winter. We aimed to create a site that was more colourful and interactive and would allow our customers to engage with our products more readily. Customers can now upload their photographs and stories onto our website. We have also revamped the Shropshire Seaweed Facebook page, the Shropshire Seaweed Twitter feed and launched a brand new Shropshire Seaweed Pinterest board. We hope to make much better use of these social media channels over the next twelve months.
Also on the horizon in 2013 is our collaboration in new project called the Seaweed Industry Association. This new body aims to bring together manufacturers and suppliers of seaweed based products from around the globe in a single online marketplace. More details on this to follow in a forthcoming blog.
We have had unprecedented enquiries about our products over the winter period - and with the growing season just weeks away, we anticipate being very busy indeed over the coming months. Furthermore, since the Christmas break, we have already received a record amount of orders from gardeners eager to get to work with our liquid seaweed plant food. In fact, sales since Christmas have exceded the same period last year by over four times, which all bodes well for a busy and successful year!
All the best,
David Ross, Business Development
We are currently ramping up production of our seaweed fertilizer to meet anticipated demand over the coming weeks and months. For our smaller units -- Shropshire Seaweed Growth Enhancer (1 Litre) and Shropshire Seaweed Growth Enhancer trial bottle (500ml + 25% free!), as well as Shropshire Seaweed Compost Accelerator (1 Litre) -- we will again be using the Fulfilled by Amazon program. This basically means that these products are stored on our behalf in Amazon distribution centres across the country and can be delivered free of charge in the UK using super saver delivery or free next-day for Amazon Prime customers. One of the other bonuses of FBA is that customers can combine their Shropshire Seaweed purchases with other products in the Amazon catalogue -- a new pair of gardening gloves or a compost bin, perhaps -- and check out just once. Our customers were extremely positive about this service last year, which is why we are expanding the scope of our FBA offerings in 2013.
Elsewhere, all Shropshire Seaweed orders over £25 now qualify for free-next delivery for most parts of the UK -- a change we have made in response to customers eager to get their seaweed products more quickly! Customers in Northern Ireland, the Scottish Highlands and Islands and Channel Islands get free delivery as well using an economy courier service.
Another minor change we have made is to our payment methods. We now accept Google Wallet on our website, alongside PayPal, which, if you've ever used either of these services, makes the whole checkout process a lot quicker and easier.
The Shropshire Seaweed Company website has also been completely redesigned over the winter. We aimed to create a site that was more colourful and interactive and would allow our customers to engage with our products more readily. Customers can now upload their photographs and stories onto our website. We have also revamped the Shropshire Seaweed Facebook page, the Shropshire Seaweed Twitter feed and launched a brand new Shropshire Seaweed Pinterest board. We hope to make much better use of these social media channels over the next twelve months.
Also on the horizon in 2013 is our collaboration in new project called the Seaweed Industry Association. This new body aims to bring together manufacturers and suppliers of seaweed based products from around the globe in a single online marketplace. More details on this to follow in a forthcoming blog.
We have had unprecedented enquiries about our products over the winter period - and with the growing season just weeks away, we anticipate being very busy indeed over the coming months. Furthermore, since the Christmas break, we have already received a record amount of orders from gardeners eager to get to work with our liquid seaweed plant food. In fact, sales since Christmas have exceded the same period last year by over four times, which all bodes well for a busy and successful year!
All the best,
David Ross, Business Development
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