Chef Tollef Olson's featured "Harvest UnCorked!" menu:  Kelp Noodles and Mussels
 

Chef Tollef Olson, owner of Ocean Approved, 100% Natural Sea Vegetables from the Clean Cold Waters of Maine Tollef Olson is a commercial fisherman, marine consultant, marine salvage expert, chef, and business owner, with 37 years of experience on the water.
 

Born in Maine, he began his commercial fishing career on Florida’s west coast. In 1980, Mr. Olson moved back to Bar Harbor, Maine, where he started Vagabonds restaurant and earned a reputation for creative cuisine. In 1986, Mr. Olson sold the business, which continues to operate as Galyns Galley.
 

From 1980 to 1996, Mr. Olson spent the off seasons as Captain for marine salvage expeditions, managing and operating vessels up to 165’ in length. An accomplished diver, Mr. Olson participated in successful operations in South America, Europe, South East Asia, Australia, the Bahamas and the Caribbean, working on high profile projects such as the 1715 Plate Fleet, the Geldermalsen, and the Atocha wrecks.
 

Mr. Olson began his career in aquaculture in 1994, conducting site surveys for aquaculture operations along the Maine coast. Concerned by his observations of rapidly declining populations of sea urchins and mollusks due to over fishing, Mr. Olson founded Aqua Farms, LLC in 1998 to cultivate rope grown mussels utilizing technology adapted from European aqua farms. His Bang’s Island Mussels have been featured on Martha’s Stewart’s TV show, The Food Channel with Alton Brown’s Good Eats, and written about in the New York Times, Boston Globe, and other prominent publications.
 

Widely traveled, Mr. Olson has visited aquaculture operations in eight countries on 4 continents. Over the course of many years he witnessed the dramatic increase in cultivation and consumption of edible seaweed and sees tremendous opportunity for cultivated seaweed in North America. In 2005, Mr. Olson founded Ocean Approved, LLC to develop edible seaweed products from Maine.