Q3 2026 - What We Built: Sites, Slabs, and Systems

Over the last three months, it has truly been a transformative series of accomplishments for our team in building a blue economy materials supply chain and production infrastructure required to create products that scale kelp forest restoration. We completed major milestones from unlocking in-house full-scale slab production in Oakland, CA and completing the build out of key processing facilities in Mendocino County to shipping our first batches of sample boxes to pilot customers. 

Bringing Urchinite to Physical Spaces

New Vanity Prototypes: On the product front, our team successfully produced several prototypes including bathroom vanities and large 5’x8’ slabs. 

 Pilot Program Samples Shipped: We also manufactured and shipped 60 sample boxes to pilot customers, design firms, and architectural leads thus far - with more on the way. In improving upon our processes, we were able to reduce our sample box manufacturing lead time from 3 weeks to 1.5 weeks per batch. We have confirmed and selected participation from ~20 pilot project partners to run the trial installations for our first orders.

Strategic Outreach: We actively engaged the broader industry and public by showcasing our work across major venues, including Future of Us with YES SF at SFMOMA; Restore America’s Estuary Conference with Port of San Francisco, afterNature, and Ocean Front, Bite Back event with WildBlue, Reefcheck, and LoudSpring. 

New Blue Economy Materials Supply Chain

The Great Urchin Migrations: We completed a total of 3 urchin migrations, transporting ~35,000 lbs of urchins harvested from Noyo and Big River restoration sites by commercial fishermen and The Nature Conservancy. We used a range of truck types and tagged urchin bins that allow us to trace urchins back to the specific sites and blocks they were harvested from.  Prior to our work, fisheries have never previously transported large amounts of urchin outside of the Noyo Harbor. We are proud of our team for overcoming the many challenges that arose throughout the last several months. 

Traceability Learnings: These urchin migration events enabled us to test different transportation methods, understand economics, optimize logistics, and arrive at a traceability sweet spot that balances feasibility, traceability, cost, and emissions. It provided us with a higher resolution understanding of kelp restoration impact and end use performance for Urchinite.

Production Facilities are Now Live & Operational

Manufacturing Infrastructure: We operationalized our Oakland slab manufacturing warehouse and Mendocino biomineral processing site - completing essential staff training, facility utilities and equipment setup. With our biomineral processing site up and running, it is now capable of converting up to ~48,000 lbs fresh urchin per month. Our slab manufacturing facility in Oakland can now manufacture ~100 slabs per year. We are so grateful for the partnership with the City of Ukiah, and the support of the West Business Development Center for helping to bring our biomineral processing site up and running. 

New Team Members: We also welcome our new members - Michael and Alejandro, who have just joined our production team at our Ukiah and Oakland site. Michael has over 20+ years of experience in machine operations and manufacturing in the wine industry. Alejandro has 30+ years in architectural surfaces manufacturing and throughout his career he has overseen production & installation of over 468,000+ countertops.

Looking Ahead 

We are deeply grateful for your continued partnership and support as we pioneer regenerative stone surfaces to drive marine ecosystem recovery. 

As we look to the upcoming quarter, our priorities center on delivering on our pilot installations, completing our last urchin migration this season, processing biominerals, finishing contractor guide documentation, and beginning dockside traceability urchin analysis.

Support & Asks from You

• What mechanism should we use to re-circulate funding back to kelp restoration? eg. Revenue share; case-by-case; purchase urchin per lb rate; donation? 
• Do you know of consumer facing Corporates we can partner with for sales, marketing, or distribution?
• Do you know of any events or speaking opportunities we could be a good fit for?  

Drop your comments, questions and suggestions below!