Asparagopsis: a deep dive
Asparagopsis. It’s a mouthful, but it’ll change the world.
This lil seaweed is the reason we can serve up the Gamechanger – the only beef burger with up to 67% methane reduction.
What is asparagopsis?
Asparagopsis is a native Australian red algae seaweed. This edible seaweed captures carbon through photosynthesis, helping to clean and de-acidify the ocean.
Sea Forest is the first organisation in the world to grow this commercial quantity, in the pristine waters of Tasmania and it’s enough for 2.6 million cattle. That’s 10% of Australia’s herd.
What's so special about the weed?
Asparagopsis makes cows burp less methane.
Asparagopsis contains about 120 natural bioactive compounds. When consumed by ruminants (i.e. cows), these compounds react with enzymes in the digestive process to drastically reduce – and even eliminate – methane production.
20% of a ruminant’s energy is spent on making methane, so when they make less of it, they’re also more nutrient efficient – which means they take less resources to feed. Win-win!
The main bioactive compound that inhibits methane production is Bromoform (CHBr3), which is found in the Asparagopsis that Sea Forest has been cultivating.
Does it make beef taste...sea-y?
Nope. Beef’s still beefy, our same delicious burger patties made from free-range Black Angus cattle. They eat the seaweed, you don’t have to (but apparently it DOES make a nice poke bowl topping.)
Want to see how we feed the cows? Find out more ⟶
What's the sea forsest story?
Sea Forest are an Aussie-based enviro-tech company, led by CEO Sam Elsom and his team of planet-savin' environmental experts.
When the CSIRO discovered that even 0.2% of Asparagopsis in livestock’s diet had the potential to virtually eliminate methane, Sea Forest knew what they had to do.
A two-year R&D journey with three universities later, and they figured out how to cultivate Asparagopsis commercially on sea and land. They also figured out how to make the bioactive concentration of those important compounds SIX times more potent, and developed the Sea Feed oil to feed it to livestock.
Basically, they increased the number of cows you can feed with the seaweed, AND made it easier to feed to cows.
Dive deeper into Sea Forest on their website.
We’re proud to have partnered with Sea Forest since 2021. They've helped us develop a method for feeding and measuring methane in our free-range cattle and to the University of New England for their independent validity testing.
And now, you can taste the hard work.
Planet-savin' beef burgers
For just one extra dollar, your choice can help change the world. Doing good never tasted so delicious.
Available at selected restaurants.
