Interest in local seaweed production is increasing across the US. However, little seaweed specific guidance on best practices for harvesting, handling, and assessing source/harvest related hazards is available to local producers. As this emerging industry grows, it is important to provide food safety resources and guidance to ensure safe production and harvest of domestic food products.
The lack of data on chemical hazards associated with specific seaweed species grown in different regions makes regulating and controlling food safety challenging. Through review of available resources and known contaminants of concern in New York waters, New York Sea Grant has developed a guide for harvesting food-grade seaweed. The guide outlines specific environmental contaminants identified as moderate or major hazards and sets threshold concentrations for such contaminants in seaweed destined for consumption.
Thresholds were determined for those that did not have existing domestic or international standards. The calculations were based on published World Health Organization tolerable weekly or monthly intake values or the Center for Disease Control’s minimal risk level values. Calculations were designed to limit exposure to &fraq14; the published harmful levels assuming a single serving was consumed daily.
While this resource is a start to guide NY production, continued discussions around best practices for harvesting food-grade seaweed are important as the emerging industry continues to grow. This is especially important for the evaluation and determination of contaminant thresholds to ensure current and future recommendations are effective and ensure safe products make it to market.