Maker · Fish
Jan Kruijsse
A former cockle fisherman who now holds one of the few licences in the Netherlands to cut wild seaweed in the Oosterschelde. Cut today, kept in water from the same Schelde, on your plate within four days.
The story
Who's behind it
Jan Kruijsse fished for cockles and mussels until that work disappeared in 2012. That same year he started De Zeeuwse Zeewierhandel, after hearing at the fish market that many of the seaweeds he saw daily are edible. He also took over the small business of his uncle, who cut knotgrass for the oyster trade in Yerseke. In 2014 he got a licence to harvest seaweed in the Oosterschelde, something very few people in the Netherlands are allowed to do. In 2016 he built the cutting boat YE 132 with a self-developed net, so he can also cut in deeper water and is less dependent on the weather.
What really sets it apart
This is wild-cut seaweed, not rope-farmed. Jan cuts by hand at low tide on the tidal shore, with a sickle, six centimetres above the root so the plant regrows. What comes in goes straight into tanks with water from the same Oosterschelde, and stays there for about four days to develop flavour. In that water you taste the difference from dried or salted imported seaweed: full, mineral, iodine-fresh.
The range is truly seasonal work. Jan harvests at least 120 different edible varieties and which ones land on your plate that week depends on the tide and the time of year. Around February and March come thread seaweed, wakame, sea oak and Japanese sargassum; in summer it shifts more to green sea lettuce and sea beech. So you're cooking with the Schelde, not from a fixed order list.
How to stand out with this
Zeeland seaweed on the menu is a concrete, verifiable story: name, place, vessel, harvest day. You tell the guest that the sea lettuce next to their sole was cut from the Oosterschelde this week, not that it came from a bag. That only works if you move with the season, and that's precisely the selling point. Have fixed applications ready (sea lettuce through a beurre blanc, sea beech raw over raw fish, sea oak in the stock) and switch the variety along with what comes in. Call before you order and ask what was cut that day, then you've got something on the menu an importer can't deliver.
“With seaweed you have clear seasons.”
Chef’s tip
Treat fresh seaweed as a vegetable, not a garnish. Sea lettuce briefly blanched and stirred through beurre blanc lifts a white fish dish; sea beech raw through a potato salad or over tartare gives crispy salt without extra seasoning. Ask what was cut that week—the range moves with the tide.
How to use it
Ideas for your menu
Sole fillet, beurre blanc, sea lettuce
Blanch sea lettuce thirty seconds and finely chop into the sauce. Fresh, mineral note under a classic beurre blanc.
Oyster with sea beech
Raw sea beech over a cold oyster. Crispy, briny and iodine-fresh, without mignonette.
Smoked mackerel with wakame
Zeeland wakame lightly dressed with rice vinegar next to smoked mackerel. Fat against acid and sea salt.
Sea oak in dashi
Sea oak as local kombu to give a broth body, without imported seaweed.
For your menu
“Wild seaweed from the Oosterschelde, hand-cut by Jan Kruijsse (Yerseke)”
Products from Jan Kruijsse
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