About Ocean Organics
We’ve been processing seaweed and formulating fertilizers for over 40 years using techniques that are both sophisticated and sustainable. Our innovative processing technologies yield products richer than others yet with fewer solids and lower viscosity. This means our extracts can be used with a broader range of materials with better blending, mixing and stability characteristics. Our seaweed-based fertilizers, plant health materials, stress management products and soil conditioners lead the industry in quality, effectiveness, cost efficiency and environmental sustainability.
Bill Middleton
Founder
Doug Middleton
President
Sarah Williams, PhD
Director of Research
George Seaver
Vice President
Jessica Sproul
Business Manager
Samantha Waltz
Research & Quality Control
Veronica Sanitate
Marketing Manager
Dave Preston
Purchasing & Logistics Manager
Our History
Rigorous, fact-based scientific research is and has been a hallmark of Ocean Organics product development for five decades. In the 1970’s, the founders of Ocean Organics were among the many innovators working to develop viable alternatives to fossil fuel-based plant nutrition, protection and strengthening products.
During the 1970s the co-founders of Ocean Organics (one, an international business consultant; the other a professional mechanical engineer) had worked with separate product development teams in the US and Ireland. Each participated in evaluating the potential of North Atlantic seaweeds as potential renewable resources for biomedical, agricultural, and horticultural markets.
While each of these markets is different and unique, they are all tightly regulated. Why? Because they all involve living systems . . . humans, animals, and plants. As such, there are obvious needs for rigorous research to substantiate product efficiency, performance, and safety claims. Independent testing is necessary to objectively substantiate product performance and safety.
Seaweeds are the second oldest source of organic fertilizers and soil amendments; their use by coastal growers throughout the world has been documented for over 1,000 years. Seaweeds are part of the algae family.
There are more than 30,000 different forms of algae, about 10,000 of them are adapted to salt water and are known as seaweeds. They not only survive but also flourish in the oceans’ 3.5% saline solution. Seaweeds are categorized into families by color: Brown, Green and Red.
For almost 50 years, Ocean Organics has been among the world’s leaders in pioneering the use of rockweeds as a primary source of renewable natural resources. Members of the Brown Algae family, these seaweeds grow along the stone coasts on both sides of the North Atlantic. They anchor themselves to the rocks by means of “holdfasts;” unique rootlike organs that allow the plants to not only survive but flourish under some of the most stressful growing conditions imaginable. They are subjected to temperature extremes, storm surges and a host of other stresses.
While there was a clearcut need for products derived from renewable natural resources that would be more cost effective than those derived from fixed fossil fuel sources, economy was not a substitute for efficacy. The Biomedical, Agricultural and Horticulture markets are all regulated. They are regulated in terms of product claims, and they should be.
At Ocean Organics, research is the “first among equals” when it comes to new product development for anyone who deals with living systems. Growers of just about anything face a constant battle with rising agricultural/horticultural input costs. They demand credible product safety and performance research from qualified scientists . . . ideally, from investigators “with no skin in the game.”
Focused on golf courses, agricultural and horticultural markets, Ocean Organics initial efforts were focused on plant nutrition, protection and strengthening materials derived from safer, renewable, natural resources, which are highly researched and proven not just effective, but superior.