Cancún Seaweed Firm Ensol Caribe Eyes Expansion Into Dominican Republic and Belize

Cancún, Quintana Roo — After building an integrated seaweed-control model serving more than 30 hotel complexes in the Mexican Caribbean, Grupo Ensol Caribe is preparing an operational expansion that would take its sargassum containment, collection and disposal services to the Dominican Republic and Belize.

Rodrigo Malagón Millán, the company’s sales director, said the international push responds to demand from global hotel chains with properties in Mexico that want to replicate the beach-maintenance methods developed in Quintana Roo at other Caribbean destinations.

Grupo Ensol Caribe currently works the coastline stretching from Cancún to the entrance of Tulum.

Its strategy combines the installation of marine barriers, water pumping systems to extract the seaweed, beach cleaning with machinery or specialized crews, and the final disposal of the material in containers for later transfer to processing plants.

Twelve-hour window poses logistical challenge

Malagón Millán said one of the biggest logistical hurdles is speed: the seaweed must be removed within 12 hours of washing ashore to be properly used.

“When there are massive influxes it becomes very difficult to separate fresh material from what is already decomposing. On top of that, an excess of seaweed on the coast affects hotel occupancy and room rates, which in turn directly hits the budgets properties earmark for maintaining their beaches,” he said.

Alongside its overseas plans, the company is seeking to expand its local capacity through partnerships with municipal authorities to establish new final-disposal and processing centers.

Short- and medium-term projects include opening facilities in Playa del Carmen and Tulum — where the firm is weighing road alternatives for cargo truck traffic — in addition to the plant it already operates in Puerto Morelos and a later phase of expansion toward Mahahual.