<em>Source: Google Trends</em>
The Signal: Interest in Irish moss has recently re-emerged as it has built up its reputation as a superfood. This superfood trend has gathered steam alongside the COVID-19 pandemic and will likely remain popular moving forward, as an age-old remedy for many ailments, chief among them: respiratory illnesses.
Irish Moss (or "Sea Moss") is a seaweed commonly found in the North Atlantic. Its main extract, Carrageenan, is used in everything from pharmaceuticals to pet food to fire-fighting foam. Now, growing interest from a niche group of health-conscious consumers has relaunched this seaweed as a superfood (though its medical claims are not proven).
While its recent resurgence was initially driven by a shadowy conspiracy theory (see the "meta-signal" below), coverage by YouTube creators and a celebrity mention from Kim Kardashian have propelled interest, with more than 55k exact match searches for "sea moss" and 21k searches for "Irish moss" on Amazon last month, an increase of 259% according to JungleScout.
Opportunities:
Selling Irish Moss Products: On Amazon, BodSmith’s Irish Moss supplement sells at $16.99 for 90 capsules (a 1-2 month supply). Subtracting the cost of procurement ($5.66), Amazon Referral Fees ($2.55) and Amazon’s Fulfillment Fees ($3.19 according to JungleScout) leaves a profit of $5.59 per bottle, about 99%. BodSmith sold 288 units last month, for an estimated profit of ~$1,610. Meanwhile, some other brands like Herb Therapy are making thousands of sales each month, bringing in $46k monthly on a single SKU.
Customers also seek out Irish Moss as a smoothie mix ($34.99), a liquid extract ($22.95), and in dried plant form ($29.95).
With its own production facility, Swanson is probably the largest competitor. Others, like Red’s Kitchen Sink and BodSmith, seem to be making small batches at home or white labeling.
White labeling is likely the easiest option, since companies like VitaminsBecause and Dermasel already produce Irish Moss in various forms, so that you can focus on marketing the superfood trend.
According to Ahrefs’ keyword explorer, searches for "Sea Moss" and "Irish Moss" rank as easy to medium, and together pull in more than 45k searches per month in the US alone. With CPC estimates ranging from $0.06 - $0.45 there’s an opportunity to gobble up market share quickly.
The Info-Angle: Don’t want the headache of customer support in the consumables space? Another opportunity is to create helpful info-products. According to Ahrefs, people frequently search for answers to questions like "How much Sea Moss to take daily" (1.4k/month) and "Where to buy Sea Moss" (1.4k/month). But it doesn’t end there… there’s an entire suite of terms that people search for relating to sea/Irish moss recipes, from "sea moss smoothies" (1.3k/month) to "sea moss recipe" (1k/month). Some even search for an understanding of its potential medical benefits, through queries like "sea moss and pregnancy" (90/month), although we caution entering this space without a medical background. There's an opportunity to build a quality info-site, and monetize through either selling reports, ads, or through affiliate income.
The Meta-Signal… for the curious: Why is this algae suddenly so popular? And what can we learn from it in order to identify other potential markets? For this, we look to the "Meta-Signal," in which we try to discern the signal behind the signal…
A Google search, targeting the dates around the initial spike, shows that several popular articles at that time mention one "Dr Sebi." Even the link below, related to Viagra, is actually a recap of Dr. Sebi’s material.
Sure enough, Google Trends shows that searches for "Dr. Sebi" spiked at roughly the same time.
Some of the top-rated Irish Moss products on Amazon even mention his name, and terms like "Dr Sebi Sea Moss" received more than 4k exact searches on Amazon last month, according to JungleScout.
o who is Dr. Sebi? Or more accurately, who was Dr. Sebi?
It turns out that Dr. Sebi -- who was not a licensed physician, and whose real name was Alfredo Bowman -- was a controversial herbalist from Honduras with strong ties to the African American community. In 1985, he was taken to court and later acquitted for claiming he cured AIDS. When he died in 2016, rumors spread among followers that pharmaceutical companies had him killed in order to cover up his cures.
As for his recent resurgence, the rapper Nipsey Hussle was making a documentary about Sebi’s 1985 trial. When Hussle was tragically killed in March 2019, conspiracy theories quickly circulated, triggering a firestorm of interest.
The takeaway for entrepreneurs is simple: The profile of the natural-health consumer is more diverse than you might expect. The market is also sometimes driven by non-obvious events. In this case, a single tragic crime in L.A. sparked renewed interest in a controversial healer, creating demand for an obscure Atlantic algae, and lighting the fuse on this whole superfood trend.
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