Wrangell Sentinel -

For the past year, Sea Quester, a seaweed farming company based in Juneau, has been making progress growing kelp. Among its creations is a kelp burger — sales topped 500 at the Southeast Alaska State Fair in Haines in July.

But its main focus is improving on ways to farm sea kelp for more than just burgers, and scalability is the key.

Sea Quester is one of 15 companies — seven in Southeast — awarded grants totaling more than $1.27 million from the Alaska Mariculture Cluster Joint Innovation Program through the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation. The program is designed to acceler...