Australian Sustainable Seaweed Alliance
Help build the future of Australian seaweed
ASSA is the peak body for commercial seaweed industry development in Australia. Membership puts your organisation at the table, with a voice in what happens next.
Australia's seaweed industry is creating new opportunities for businesses, communities and the wider economy. ASSA brings people across the sector together to strengthen its collective voice, influence priorities and support sustainable growth of the industry.
Fit check
Is ASSA membership for you?
Join if
- You grow, harvest or process seaweed in Australia and licensing or approvals are slowing you down
- You manufacture feed, food, fertiliser, biostimulants, cosmetics or biomaterials and seaweed is in your supply chain, or about to be
- You research seaweed and want your work pointed at what industry actually needs
- You are a government agency, investor or buyer trying to read where this sector is going
- You want a say in the standards this industry will be held to, before they are set
- You have been meaning to join for two years and never got around to it
Membership
Two ways to join
Fees have been reduced for 2026/27. It has never cost less to be part of ASSA.
Corporate membership
- Influence policy and industry priorities
- Help shape research and development investment
- Vote and nominate representatives to the ASSA Board
- Stay connected to industry developments, opportunities and networks
- Access member resources and discounts on selected event registration, including Seagriculture events worldwide
Best for companies and organisations with something at stake in how this industry is regulated, funded and represented.
Apply for Corporate membership →Affiliate membership
- Regular updates on ASSA's work and on seaweed developments in Australia and overseas
- Access to selected member-only resources
- Negotiated member benefits, including discounted Seagriculture registration
Best for individuals, consultants, students, researchers, agribusinesses and smaller organisations who want to stay close to the sector.
Apply for Affiliate membership →Affiliate membership does not carry a vote or board nomination rights.
Why a peak body matters now
The rules for this industry are being written right now
Seaweed farming and harvesting in Australia sits across seven state and territory fisheries and aquaculture agencies, several federal portfolios, and food standards that were not designed with seaweed in mind. Approvals take longer than they should. Requirements change from one state to the next. Rules written for other industries get applied to seaweed even if they aren't appropriate.
Australia's competitive advantage in growing and manufacturing seaweed is under threat from regulatory burden. No single company can fix that alone, whether it is the largest producer in the country or a start-up with three staff and a lease application in progress.
A peak body can advocate for rules and settings that support the industry, not impede it.
The gap
It isn't a shortage of evidence. It's a shortage of one voice.
Australia has world-class seaweed researchers, credible science on methane reduction and biostimulants, and companies already selling into real markets. The evidence is not the problem.
The problem shows up when a department asks who speaks for Australian seaweed. The answer has to be one organisation with members right across the value chain: growers, harvesters, processors, manufacturers, researchers, investors and buyers. The more of the industry ASSA represents, the harder that voice is to ignore.
Membership fees were cut for 2026/27 for exactly that reason. A large membership carries more weight than a small one.
Where your fee goes
What ASSA works on
Corporate members have a direct say in what gets priority, which is exactly what your vote is for.
Representation and advocacy
Your case put to federal, state and territory governments, so you are not making it alone:
- Regulation in proportion to the actual risk
- Faster, more consistent licensing across states
- Seaweed written properly into marine planning
Research coordination
ASSA delivered the DAFF and FRDC-funded project portfolio through to 2025. The role is to find the gaps and connect universities, CRCs and industry, not to compete with researchers for grants.
Communication and knowledge sharing
Member briefings, newsletters and the development of Seaweed Central into one place to find what is happening in Australian seaweed, here and overseas.
$550+GST a year. Includes a vote and the right to nominate board representatives.
Just as important
What ASSA won't do
A peak body that competes with its own members is not worth joining. So ASSA does not:
- Grow, harvest or sell seaweed commercially
- Run processing facilities
- Sell consulting services that undercut member firms
- Take on research that universities and research agencies do better
- Back one species, one technology or one company over another
The job is to create the conditions everyone in this industry can grow in.
2026/27 priorities
Where ASSA is heading
Since the DAFF and FRDC project portfolio wrapped up in 2025, ASSA has spent eight months with government and funding agencies working out where seaweed makes the biggest difference. Those conversations landed on food security as the priority.
Methane reduction
Building on the Asparagopsis work already done, and on what it means for livestock sustainability and the beef supply chain.
Seaweed biostimulants
The international evidence base for seaweed extracts in agriculture is strengthening. Australian growers, manufacturers and farmers should be part of that conversation.
Seaweed Central
Developing the portal into a single place to find research, market information, regulation and industry news on Australian seaweed.
Membership is open beyond growers. If seaweed is in your supply chain, your research programme or your investment thesis, this is your industry body too.
Who's already in
You'd be joining these organisations
ASSA's corporate members include:
- CH4 Global
- FutureFeed
- Australian Seaweed Institute
- AusKelp
- Fremantle Seaweed
- Pacific Bio
Alongside affiliate members from across the supply chain — researchers, consultants, manufacturers and investors.
"[Two or three sentences from a corporate member on what ASSA membership has been worth to their business — ideally something specific about advocacy, a connection made, or information they would not have had otherwise.]"
"[A second quote from a different type of member — a researcher, a processor or an affiliate — so a reader can see themselves in at least one of them.]"
Let's do the maths
$550 a year, in perspective
What corporate membership costs per week. Affiliate membership works out at $3.37.
A single discounted Seagriculture registration can return a good share of the fee on its own.
If ASSA's advocacy takes even a month off an approval timeline somewhere in the country, that is worth more than a decade of membership — and it counts for every member, not only the one waiting on the licence.
Roughly how much regulatory or market consulting $550 buys you, once.
The fee is a contribution to the cost of having somebody in the room when decisions about this industry get made.
No pressure
Not ready for corporate membership?
Start as an Affiliate at $175+GST and move up when it makes sense for your organisation. You will stay connected to ASSA's work and to what is happening in seaweed here and overseas, without committing to the full fee.
If you would rather talk it through first, get in touch. Someone from ASSA will answer your questions honestly, including the question of whether membership is worth it for your situation. No sales sequence, no follow-up campaign.
Timing
Join today and get a full 12 months
Your membership runs for 12 months from the day you join and renews annually from there. There is no part-year pricing to work out: you pay the standard annual fee and get the full year.
It is a good year to be part of, too. The regulatory discussions and the research priorities that shape the next few years are being worked through now, and board nominations come from corporate members. Joining now gives you a say in what ASSA advocates for.
Corporate $550+GST · Affiliate $175+GST · Full 12 months from the day you join.
Questions
Before you join
Any organisation or individual with an interest in Australia's commercial seaweed industry. That now covers a lot more than growers.
Processors, feed and food manufacturers, biostimulant and fertiliser companies, researchers, government agencies, investors, consultants and buyers are all welcome.
Corporate members have a say in how ASSA is run. They vote, they can nominate representatives to the Board, and they have direct input into policy positions and research priorities. Affiliate members stay informed and get access to selected member resources and benefits, but do not vote or nominate.
Corporate membership is $550 plus GST a year. Affiliate membership is $175 plus GST a year. Both were reduced for 2026/27 as part of ASSA's push to grow the membership base.
Your membership runs for 12 months from the day you join, and renews annually on that date at the then-current fee.
No. ASSA's focus has broadened to the whole value chain. If seaweed shows up anywhere in what you make, buy, fund or research, membership is open to you and your perspective is useful to the industry.
ASSA delivered the DAFF and FRDC-funded project portfolio through to 2025, which built much of the current evidence base for Australian seaweed. Since then it has been working with government and funding agencies to set the next set of priorities, with food security, methane reduction and seaweed biostimulants at the centre. Members receive briefings on this work as it progresses.
Membership fees fund ASSA's advocacy, policy work, member communication and the coordination that sits behind its research and market development activity. ASSA is a company limited by guarantee with an audited annual financial report, and members receive it.
Click any of the join buttons on this page. You will go straight to a secure Stripe checkout where you enter your details and pay, so you can complete the whole thing in one go.
If your organisation would rather be invoiced, you can request an invoice instead.
Corporate membership sits with the organisation rather than an individual, so more than one person can receive communication and take part in member activities. Tell us who should be on the list when you apply.
Help build the future of Australian seaweed
This industry gets one shot at setting itself up properly. Membership is how you get a say in it.
Questions first? Email ASSA and someone will get back to you.