All dried seaweed, cultivated or collected from wild stocks, is taken to collection points where it is dried and put in sacks of hessian or polypropylene. From these collection points, it is transported by road or boat to Dar-es-Salaam, for cleaning and export. Occasionally, products from Zanzibar are exported directly from the island's port.
Collection from Mafia Island is more problematic than from Zanzibar because transport facilities are costly, severely restricted, as petrol shortages are common. Past exporters in Tanga mentioned that collection of seaweed was expensive, especially if the quality of the product was poor.
A number of businesses in Tanzania have applied for seaweed export licenses, but currently only two companies are exporting from mainland Tanzania. Their markets are Denmark and France. In Zanzibar, most seaweed is exported to a processing factory in Denmark or to a seaweed re-exporter in Singapore.
