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Algae Oil: The Slippery Truth About New Cooking Oil Trend
From chemical plants to your kitchen: this report shows an awkward truth behind the scenes of the trendy algae cooking oil business.

TLDR: Companies are selling "trendy" algae cooking oil, but something's fishy - and it's not just the taste! One brand operates from a public library, another is run by ex-chemical industry folks, and the prices range from suspiciously cheap ($1/oz) to absolutely bonkers ($35/oz). Not to mention that most algae oil producers are actually chemical manufacturers making biofuel and jet fuel. So that fancy new health oil you're buying? It might be better suited for your car than your stir-fry.
Disclaimer: I discovered this trend using Exploding topics (I am an affiliate and a long-time fan of this tool), which has become my go-to resource for uncovering under-the-radar opportunities. While the tool doesn’t provide the research that comes with my newsletter, if you're into finding even more trends in all the fields, this tool is definitely worth a look.
Table of Contents
The Current State: A Web of Inconsistencies
A search for "Algae Cooking Oil" on Amazon brings up 101 results, but when looking at individual listings you'll find very few actually contain what you'd expect.
The search results are dominated by three main players, each deserving a closer inspection.
Let's start with Thrive, the most visible brand (three out of five spots on Amazon above the fold search results for algae cooking oil.) Their product markets itself as a "Professional Blend" containing algae oil and high oleic sunflower oil. They claim a smoke point of 535°F — roughly 125°F higher than olive oil — and "five times the oxidative stability of avocado oil." Impressive claims, but did they test their product themselves? We don’t know, there’s no paper to prove it. But there is at least one research showing that bohai algae oil isn't recommended for high-temperature cooking due to potential rapid degradation (maybe it’s just the case with that particular algae? But I’d still want to see Thrive’s product tests results)
The Thrive Story: A Chemical Past
Let's look at who's behind these products, starting with Thrive. According to LinkedIn, the company has three people associated with it — two board members and one operational leader. That leader, Eelco Blum, Co-Founder & General Manager, has an interesting history worth examining.
Blum's career started at Cargill, where he rose from accounts payable to Business Consultant for Strategy Development. His main project? Truvia, a "natural" sweetener developed jointly with Coca-Cola. That venture ended with a $6.1 million class action settlement in November 2014, right when Blum departed his role at Cargill. The lawsuit revealed that while Cargill marketed Truvia as natural, they weren't mentioning the ethanol, methanol, and rubbing alcohol used in processing.
After Truvia, Blum's career path is telling:
Product Line Management at TerraVia Holdings for algae-based products
Managing Director at Avantium, focusing on "renewable chemistry technologies" including plant-based glycols and CO2 electrocatalysis
Founded Beehive consultancy for "food and beverage product introductions"
The pattern? A career built on turning industrial ingredients into consumer products through clever marketing and product development.
Algae Cooking Club: Venture-Backed Biotechnology
Another player marketed well on Amazon, Algae Cooking Club comes from Squared Circles, a venture studio that describes its mission as working at "the intersection of science and culture, redesigning everyday consumer products to be better for you and our planet." While their founder publicly criticizes seed oils (which I, personally, appreciate and wholeheartedly share this sentiment), their own product's details remain conspicuously vague.
Their marketing emphasizes sustainable, consumer-friendly messaging, but their venture studio background and product opacity suggest something closer to biotechnology than traditional food production.
ProSeed Holistic Wellness: Shifting Identity
ProSeed Holistic Wellness presents itself as an artisanal operation, complete with NAHA certification and master herbalist credentials. Their marketing copy reads well:
"UNREFINED VIRGIN PRESSED ALGAL OIL"
"Organically grown or wildcrafted"
"Handmade in small batches"
"NAHA CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL AROMATHERAPIST"
But try to verify any of this, and the story falls apart.
They claim to sell pure, unrefined algae oil for $34.99 per ounce, boasting NAHA certification and master herbalist credentials. Their business address leads to a public library, while their founder's location bounces between three different states depending on which document you check.
According to founder’s blog she is based in Michigan, but if you check her LinkedIn she is in Pennsylvania (and not in New Jersey, with her library-headquatered business). Even their product description raises questions — they admit it has a "fishy taste" and suggest masking it with essential oils (cinnamon), hardly what you'd expect from a premium cooking oil.
A Matter of Price
The pricing spectrum is wild:
ProSeed Holistic Wellness sells their "100% pure" algae oil for $34.99 per ounce
Thrive's blend of algae and sunflower oil costs $1.48 per ounce
Algae Cooking Club offers their product at $1.09 per ounce
For comparison, organic sunflower seed oil on Amazon costs just $0.35 per ounce
Initially, I thought ProSeed's $34.99 price tag might be closer to reality for pure algae oil. After all, how could competitors sell comparable products for 30 times less? But since ProSeed's legitimacy is questionable I had to find some other ways to solve the pricing puzzle.
So what should algae oil actually cost? Here's what we know: According to industry experts at Natural Products Expo West, "algae oil is much more expensive than fish oil."
Well at least we have some bottom line. Let's put that in perspective: NOW Foods, known for reasonably priced supplements, sells their liquid fish oil for $1.62 per ounce on Amazon at the moment of writing. If algae oil is supposed to be more expensive than fish oil, how is Algae Cooking Club selling their product for just $1.09 per ounce? This gets even more suspicious when you consider their production volumes and revenue are far lower than established supplement companies like NOW Foods.
What's Actually in These Bottles?
The color of these products also raises red flags. According to LG Botanicals, natural algae oil should have an orange color due to carotenoids produced during algal growth. Yet Thrive's product is distinctly yellow, even though the company tries to distract you from that fact with the packaging (oh, it gives me Truvia lawsuit vibes) — looking suspiciously like the sunflower oil it contains.
While Algae Cooking Club simply hides their oil in opaque packaging.
Let's look closer at what these companies are actually selling: