Media Kit

East Neuk Seaweed runs tide-led seaweed-foraging and wild-cooking workshops on the Fife coast near St Andrews, led by forager and chef Jayson Byles. Wild. Local. Seasonal.

East Neuk Seaweed teaches people to find, cut and cook Scotland’s wild seaweeds on the shores of the East Neuk of Fife. Founder Jayson Byles — a New Zealander of Māori Pacific heritage, trained chef and former commercial seaweed-harvest manager — leads every workshop, from a 90-minute shoreline taster to a four-hour foraging experience that ends with a five-course wild menu cooked over fire on the beach. Dates follow the tides rather than the calendar, and every harvest follows the business’s regenerative rule: cut, never pull. The workshops have been featured by The New York Times, National Geographic, the BBC and The Guardian.

East Neuk Seaweed runs seaweed-foraging and wild-cooking workshops on the East Neuk of Fife, the string of fishing villages on Scotland’s east coast near St Andrews. Sessions run from the 90-minute Seaweed Taster (all ages) to the flagship On the Rocks — four hours of foraging the low-tide shore followed by a five-course, seaweed-infused menu cooked over fire on the beach — plus the Coastal Dram, pairing wild seaweeds with Kingsbarns single malts. Because the lowest shore only uncovers on the biggest tides, dates follow the moon: workshops are scheduled around each month’s spring tides rather than a fixed weekly calendar.

Founder Jayson Byles is a forager, trained chef, permaculturist and former commercial seaweed-harvest manager, originally from New Zealand and of Māori Pacific heritage. The business’s ethos is Tihei Mauri Ora — a commitment to protecting the living life-force of the coast: seaweeds are cut, never pulled, and only in quantities the ecosystem readily regrows. Workshops hold a 5.0 rating on Tripadvisor, and the seaweed story has been told by The New York Times, National Geographic, the BBC, The Guardian, Süddeutsche Zeitung and the South China Morning Post, on BBC Scotland’s Landward, and in two independent films.

Jayson Byles is a forager, trained chef and permaculturist, originally from New Zealand and of Māori Pacific heritage. After two decades in Scotland — professional kitchens, commercial food production, and managing a team of commercial seaweed harvesters on the Fife coast — he founded East Neuk Seaweed to share the shore he works: teaching people to find, cut and cook wild seaweeds, and to leave the coast better than they found it.