Founded in 2000, NoriTech developed a way to grow nori on land, using sea water, in a totally controlled environment. Although sea-grown nori is a $2 billion a year industry, because its nutrient content cannot be standardised this is of little use for supplements or nutraceuticals. The majority is used as sushi wraps or eaten as plain nori.
But NoriTech's approach will make the seaweed suitable for these markets; the company can determine exact quantities grown, know the nutritional profile and safeguard against contamination.
"Supplements and nutraceuticals are quite a significant market," CEO Alex Harel told NutraIngredients.com, "especially as nori is believed to be the best algae containing all the vitamins, minerals and proteins needed for human health."
The company can also tailor the levels of nutrients to meet customer requirements by tweaking the growing process. This is not genetic modification. Rather, Harel explained, small amounts of natural nutritional substances are put into the water to make, for instance, nori with a higher concentration of protein.
Most of the land-grown nori produced to date at a pilot production plant in Haifa has been devoted to product development applications. NoriTech has developed its own dietary supplement and nutraceutical products for private label, and also plans to supply the seaweed as a bioactive powder to other supplement and food makers.
It has also formed a partnership with Ocean Nutrition Canada, the company best known for its Meg-3 fish oil brand and which has considerable knowledge and expertise in supplements and functional foods. The two companies first teamed up three years ago, under the auspices of the Canada-Israel Industrial Research and Development Foundation.
According to Harel, ONC has developed several types of products based on nori, which will be marketed by both companies jointly.
Commercialisation of the products is set to get underway later this year, and growing facilities are being established in the US and Canada.
Based on the popularity of other marine and algae bioactives such as astaxanthin, Harel is expecting demand for quite a big volume of nori. Moreover, as far as he is aware, no other company has the developed a way of growing nori commercially on land.
As one would expect given its use in sushi, Japan is important in nori production - both as a grower and as a consumer. It uses between 70 and 80 per cent of the world's nori.
But Israel is establishing a formidable reputation for developing innovative marine and algae-based technologies. Harel said that this is thanks to the activities of the Israeli Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute.
In fact, NoriTech sprung up out of research conducted at the institute by founder and chief technological officer Israel Levy. It was incorporated in 2000 under the Israel Chief Scientist's Technological Incubators programme, and operations have so far been based at the Naiot Technological Center.