Start-up Healthy Food

Retrospective

On Monday, Oct. 8, we stepped into the world of healthy food startup Seamore from entrepreneur Willem Sodderland. A plate of tagliatelle at a restaurant in Ibiza triggered him in 2015 to start developing seaweed products. Now his company Seamore’s products are in 950 stores in eight countries. This evening, Sodderland explained how marketing and sales contribute to the explosive growth of the young company. We also took a seat next to him in the entrepreneurial chair this evening, to help think through some strategic choices.

Willem doesn’t have “Seaweirdo” on his business card for nothing. The passion and enthusiasm splashes off as he tells how he has built Seamore over the past few years. Supported almost exclusively by a team of interns, he managed to make great strides with clever marketing and sales. By now there is not only pasta made from seaweed, but also bacon and tortillas. There were many questions from the audience about the production process and health aspects. Of course, Willem also addressed the marketing strategy. It starts with making consumers curious through storytelling. That is, bringing the story into the world in many ways. Then people have to try the product. Some people take it straight to the store, others reach them through events where they can taste it. They also have bloggers talk about their experience with the products. Once consumers have tried the product, they need to make them fall in love with it. They do that by boosting the product experience with cooking tips, videos and recipes.

There are ambitious growth plans. In two years, Sodderland wants to go from eight to 15 countries and from 3 to 10 products. After the break, he presented four strategic issues to us. Participants were able to connect to the topic of their choice. At the plenary feedback, the ideas were collected so everyone could learn from the input. Willem was very happy with the input provided. To thank them for thinking along, everyone was given a Seamore product to take home. Given the enthusiastic reactions afterwards, Seamore has gained a lot of fans.

The speaker

Willem Sodderland is founder and “Seaweirdo” of and at Seamore. Previously, he started Buzzable, an innovation accelerator and Buzzer, Word of Mouth Marketing agency. Willem is a mentor and investor in several startups.

About Seamore

As Willem delved into it, he discovered that seaweed is the healthiest and most sustainable food on earth. Whereas products grown on land face all sorts of problems such as lack of land and water, depletion and the necessity of pesticides, the healthy seaweed, on the contrary, grows easily in natural conditions.

After a crowdfunding round, Seamore’s first product appeared on the market in September 2015. Today, the Seamore range consists of three products: seaweed paste, seaweed wraps and seaweed bacon. Products that could include seaweed in the future include bread, chips, ice cream and tea.