My name is Lucas Evans, and I'm a seaweed entrepreneur. After nearly 20 years working as a public servant in Australia, I traded in my governmental job for gumboots, seaweed and seagulls in Coromandel, New Zealand. I'm the founder of Premium Seas, a leading producer of seaweed and seaweed-related products in New Zealand, a country with over 900 species of seaweed.
The product can be used in so many different ways. Every part of the seaweed plant can be used, and products range from biostimulants to lubricants. Besides the environmental benefits of farming a product that absorbs greenhouse gases, I also saw an opportunity to create jobs, because there's no established seaweed industry over here.
After a trip to Coromandel back in 2012, I returned to Canberra and registered a business in New Zealand. Then, I developed a couple of products and obtained the certifications I needed to harvest seaweed. At first, I had to manage Premium Seas remotely from Australia and fly over just for the seaweed harvest. Two years ago, I left my job, moved to Coromandel and became a full-time seaweed entrepreneur.
I have a lot more flexibility in my working day than before. My tasks vary a lot. On some days, my work involves administration, stakeholder management, marketing, business compliance and new product development. On other days, I'll be out on the barge, harvesting, processing and bagging up seaweed.
On days when we're out at sea, we operate a barge that was designed for green-lipped mussel farming. We meet the crew at the local wharf, where the mussel barges offload their mussels. We then head out to the mussel farms in the Hauraki Gulf.
We grow the seaweed on mussel lines. When we're harvesting, we move along the lines, lift them up and cut off the parts we use. To restart the process, we put out seeded lines. These are created in the seaweed hatchery, where spores are extracted from wild seaweed, put into tanks and attached to lines.
If we're lucky, we can catch a couple of fish on our lunch break. Sometimes, when we're out at sea, we see dolphins, whales and penguins. Days on the water almost feel like days off for me. If we've harvested, I then go back to my commercial kitchen and put the seaweed harvest into fridges, to be processed the next morning. Sometimes, I do computer work afterwards, but I try to avoid using the computer after 3 p.m. because my mind is foggier later in the day. In the evening, I like to relax, go sailing and try to think about something other than seaweed!