Seaweed Week: A Food and Drink Festival Celebrating Maine's Kelp Harvest

April 21 – 30, 2023

5th Annual Food and Drink Festival Celebrating Maine's Kelp Harvest

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Event at a glance

Welcome to the fifth annual Seaweed Week! Beginning Friday, April 21st, and running through Sunday, April 30th, you can enjoy seaweed food, drinks, crafts and events - from burgers and beer, cocktails and salad, even ice cream - all featuring Maine seaweed at businesses across the state.

Local restaurant and bar menus feature unique seaweed specials!

Brewers, bakers, distillers, chocolatiers, cheesemakers, and other artisans launch limited-edition releases

Events include a kick-off party and film festival, seaweed ID walks and workshops, product launches, and farm tours

Seaweed Week Farmers Market! Buy kelp direct from local farms and cook with it at home

Join the celebration!

Restaurants and Businesses: Sign up to participate

Farmers: Join our Farmers Market to sell your fresh kelp

2023 Restaurant List

Check out our participating restaurants!

2023 Event Schedule

Mark your calendars this year's events!

From Farm . . .

With 40+ kelp farms and growing, Maine leads the nation in seaweed farming. Lobstermen, shellfish farmers and others plant kelp lines in fall for harvest in April.

And Wild . . .

Maine's wild harvesters collect dulse, Irish moss, kombu, and wakame at extreme low tides. It's a way of life that goes back thousands of years along this coast.

. . . To Table

Maine's top restaurants, bars, breweries and distilleries are bringing their passion and skills to serve up local sea vegetables. Join them at the table!

Why seaweed? Why Maine?

Delicious & Versatile

North Atlantic Kelp, Kombu, Wakame, Sea Lettuce, and Irish Moss have a wide range of flavors and culinary uses. And if kelp is the new kale, dulse is the new bacon.

Health Benefits

Typically, seaweeds have 10x more minerals than land-based plants. Plus vitamins, essential aminos, and antioxidants. Oh, and it's where fish get their omegas.

Maine = Awesome

Maine is the national leader in seaweed farming and harvest! In 2022 Maine farms harvested over 1,000,000 pounds of kelp from sea farms across the state!

Climate Friendly

Growing seaweed requires no land, no fresh water, no fertilizer, and no pesticides. Let's champion this zero-input crop that's a true sustainability superhero.

Working Waterfront

As Maine's traditional working waterfront jobs face multiple pressures, fishermen are turning to aquaculture and kelp farming to diversify their income on the water.

Shellfish Love

Oyster and mussel growers are adding kelp farms to their operations because beneficial halo effects make their shellfish stronger, healthier and tastier.

Happy Oceans

Seaweed creates essential habitat for baby lobsters and other marine life. It also sequesters carbon, creates oxygen, and combats ocean acidification.

Feed The World

The world needs 50% more food by 2050, with increasing droughts and poor soil. As we look toward the oceans, seaweed is one piece of the global food-security equation.

Highlights from past festivals

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A woman talks about specimens of seaweed to a small group of people on a beach

As seen in

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