Sargablock Sells First Franchise Outside Mexico

Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo — Sargablock, the Puerto Morelos company that turns sargassum into construction blocks, has sold its first franchise outside Mexico and is moving ahead with plans to replicate its model in Belize.

Omar Vázquez, the company’s director and creator, said the business model consists of selling licenses so other countries can copy what is done in Puerto Morelos, home to the plant and to the first house in the world built with the material.

“We have already been to Belize, we have already been to the Dominican Republic. We were in Ghana, in Africa,” he said. “What we want to do is sell a license, a franchise, because there is sargassum all over the Caribbean.”

In the Dominican Republic, the first franchise license was sold last year and the company is now studying which substrates to use before beginning production. In Belize, the project has been in development for several years. Vázquez said there is also interest in Barbados and Martinique.

Output grows from 200 blocks a day to 5,000

The company has scaled up from 200 blocks a day using wooden molds to 5,000 blocks daily. It now runs three industrial machines, the most recent an automatic diesel-powered unit with a hydraulic system.

Vázquez said the plant processes between 20 and 22 tons of wet sargassum a day, equivalent to between 2,000 and 4,000 blocks depending on the type of piece being made.

From an initial staff of four employees, the company now has 16 workers and as many as 66 during the peak sargassum season.

Production goes to southeastern Mexico, Mexico City and Guadalajara, where a home has already been built with the blocks. Vázquez said the company has donated 21 houses in Quintana Roo.

“For us it is a project with purpose more than an economic question,” he said.

The business started eight years ago in Puerto Morelos using wooden molds and artisanal methods. The addition of hydraulic and industrial machinery allowed it to scale up production and standardize the block, which is sold as an alternative for walls and housing.

The project emerged as a way to make use of the massive sargassum landfalls in the Mexican Caribbean and has been taken as a reference in other countries facing the same problem. Participation in international forums has helped generate contacts for transferring the model.

Vázquez said the Puerto Morelos plant remains open to visitors and that the main goal is to replicate the system in areas where sargassum damages beaches and the tourism industry.