Aquaculture farm, Fremantle Seaweed, has acquired a new site in Fremantle to develop a seaweed hatchery, nursery, production and processing facility.
Fremantle Seaweed is growing the red seaweed, Asparagopsis, that has been shown by CSIRO to reduce climate change causing methane emissions from cattle and other ruminant livestock by more than 80 per cent. The company became an official cultivation partner of FutureFeed, the CSIRO-established company holding global IP for the use of Asparagopsis seaweed as a livestock feed ingredient, in May 2025.
The company has completed two crowd-sourced funding rounds over the past few years, raising $1.26 million through Birchal in May 2024, and a further $2.3 million via OnMarket last December.
Fremantle Seaweed stated the capital invested in the company is catalytic to supporting its seed production, enabling expansion of its hatchery, nursery and processing facilities and building ocean tech to plant and harvest seeded substrate.
The new site is at 20a Mews Road, listed by Empire Commercial Property in November 2024 and described as having land area of 1331 square metres and featuring a modern jetty with mooring for boats.
The acquisition was supported by the Western Australian government through a $4 million grant that Fremantle Seaweed received in August 2023, as part of the Western Australian Investment Attraction Fund, as well as a debt facility from Ironstate Capital Partners.
Fremantle Seaweed managing director, Chris De Cuyper, said the facility unlocks the biggest constraint to scaling a new Asparagopsis industry – the ability to provide the seed material to grow out on the company’s longlines.
“This facility will be a beacon of hope as we face the great challenge of our time – climate change,” De Cuyper stated on LinkedIn.
