About ecklonia MAXX

Growing up in Hawston Brynmor had first-hand experience of the bounty of the South African shoreline as truckloads of wild caught abalone left Hawston for factories in Hermanus. The fisherman remained lowly and poor and as the resource declined he also saw a decline in local socio-economics… His big question was what more can we do apart from merely delivering the Abalone. Can it not be processed?

This question stayed with him as a he later pursued opportunities in Abalone Mariculture abroad where he fended a myriad of question about the local Ecklonia maxima Kelp species and supply. With this demand he headed back to South Africa and set about understanding the mechanisms and legislative framework that governs the industry to build CMD Industries, then Cape Marine Distributors supply-chain.

Initially sustaining the business through other full-time employment he set about establishing the company domestically. With slow but consistent initial exports the company slowly grew.

Allistaire October joined Brynmor on his kelp adventure in 2013. Having spent nearly a decade developing closed loop green industrial systems (Renewable Energy / Bulk Water Reclamation / High density agriculture / Agro Processing) his dream was years to far and family needed him present and able. Allistaire, through his professional and investment network realised the importance of being in your business if you were intent on advancing it knew the company had to scale with Brynmor coming on-board full time.

As responsible party for CMD Industries strategic development Allistaire is responsible for all things strategy from brand and marketing development, product development and formulation, research and development and everything that fuels his many passions with a fixed goal to see CMD become an internationally recognized industry role player. eckloniaMAXX is the resulting offspring and spearhead to that objective. The result of years of R&D and investment capable of realising CMD’s Green Industrialization objectives.

The pioneers of their respective industries, Brynmor and Allistaire, joined forces to explore the possibilities of evolving Ecklonia maxima into a product applicable to numerous industries as a novel high value market offering for    domestic and export markets