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My Economy

Seaweed sellers worry about tariffs, too

Sean McHenry Dec 26, 2019
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Fiona Houston, co-founder of Mara Seaweed, harvesting off the Scottish coast. Angus Bremner
My Economy

Seaweed sellers worry about tariffs, too

Sean McHenry Dec 26, 2019
Fiona Houston, co-founder of Mara Seaweed, harvesting off the Scottish coast. Angus Bremner
HTML EMBED:
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Fiona Houston, co-founder of Mara Seaweed, saw a lot of potential in the Scottish coastline.

“When I first started, you couldn’t get locally sourced seaweed,” she said.

She and co-founder Xa Milne wanted to sell seaweed as a replacement for salt. They launched Mara back in 2013.

“I literally started getting my wetsuit on and harvesting the seaweed myself,” said Houston.

The company has grown quite a bit since its founding, and has its own processing facility. But as the company has grown larger, so have tariff-related concerns.

“We currently are trading with America,” said Houston. “The hardest thing is when a tariff gets retrospectively put on your goals –– which happened recently –– which you aren’t expected and weren’t planning for.”

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