Botanical specifications
- Botanical name: Arthrospira platensis
- Family: Phormidiaceae (cyanobacteria)
- Part used: Whole-cell powder (sun-dried)
- Origin: Lake Chad, Kanem region
- Certification status: Not certified organic. Wild-harvested from an open lake, which is not certifiable under schemes built for cultivated land. Harvest log, location and source-water test supplied per lot.
Ingredient pillar · Lake Chad
Wild-harvested Lake Chad spirulina, sun-dried by the Kanembu women
Known locally as dihé. Skimmed from the alkaline shores of Lake Chad, hand-formed into thin discs, sun-dried, and milled. Heavy metals and microbial load tested per batch; cyanotoxin report available per harvest lot.
Botanical
Arthrospira platensis
Origin
Lake Chad, Kanem region
Form
Powder & flake
Harvest
Wild, hand-skimmed
MoQ wholesale
From 5 kg with CoA
What dihé spirulina is
Spirulina is a spiral-shaped cyanobacterium that thrives in highly alkaline waters with a pH of 9 to 11 and rich mineral content. The shallow bays of Lake Chad are one of only a handful of places on earth where it grows naturally and abundantly. The Kanembu women have harvested it there for centuries, calling it dihé, and using it as a daily food and a long-keeping staple.
Our supply comes from this traditional wild harvest, not from indoor reactors or pond farms. The women skim the green film from the lake surface with calabash bowls, drain it through cloth in the sand, hand-form thin discs, and dry them in the sun on woven mats.
How to use spirulina
- In drinks, about a teaspoon stirred into juice, a smoothie or yogurt. Start with less than you think; the flavour is assertive.
- Energy bites and balls, 1 tsp per batch of date-and-nut bites. The earthy note pairs with cocoa.
- Traditional Kanembu use, broken into chunks and added to a sorghum or millet stew (la sauce) toward the end of cooking.
- Capsules, our wholesale buyers commonly encapsulate at around 0.5 g per capsule for their own supplement lines.
Spirulina is a food ingredient. We do not recommend intake levels and nothing here is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. If you are considering it for a specific health reason, speak to a qualified healthcare professional.
Wild Lake Chad vs cultivated spirulina
| Marker | Wild Lake Chad (this) | Cultivated commodity |
|---|---|---|
| Habitat | Open alkaline lake, full sun | Closed reactor or open pond |
| Strain | Multi-strain natural population | Single selected strain |
| Drying | Sun-dried at ambient temperature | Typically spray-dried at high heat |
| Phycocyanin | Preserved by low-temperature drying | Partially degraded by heat |
| Testing burden | Lake background, must be tested | Source-water dependent, must be tested |
| Energy footprint | None, sun-dried at point of harvest | Higher: pumps, paddlewheels, dryers |
| Income type | Cooperative livelihood for Kanembu women | Industrial farm wage |
The Kanembu women
Cooperative profile
Dihé Cooperative of Bol
Kanembu women across villages on the shores of Lake Chad, near the town of Bol. Only women harvest dihé: by Kanembu tradition, men entering the water would make the lake barren, so the practice has remained exclusively female for centuries. Harvest runs most of the year, pausing during the rainy peak when runoff alters the bloom. The cooperative operates its own sieving and packing house.
How we test each batch
Wild harvest from a large, shared lake means testing is not optional. What we run and what we supply:
- Cyanotoxins (microcystin), analysed on the harvest lot. The current report is available on request before you order. The reference threshold commonly applied in the supplement industry is 1 µg/g; check the report against your own specification.
- Heavy metals, lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury panel per batch.
- Microbial, total plate count, yeast and mould, salmonella, E. coli.
- Source-water test for the harvest pond, supplied with the lot documentation.
- Per-batch CoA with every wholesale shipment of 5 kg or more. Laboratory name and accreditation scope disclosed in your quote.
Three uses
1. Pineapple-coconut blend
1 cup pineapple, half a cup coconut milk, half a banana, 1 tsp spirulina, juice of half a lime. Blend. The acidity of the pineapple rounds off the marine note.
2. Cocoa-spirulina energy bites
1 cup pitted dates, half a cup cashews, 2 tbsp cocoa, 2 tsp spirulina, pinch of salt. Pulse in a food processor, roll into 12 balls. Keeps a week in the fridge.
3. La sauce au dihé (Kanembu tradition)
Cook a tomato, onion and chilli base. Add stock and stir in 1 to 2 tbsp of dihé pieces, rehydrated 5 minutes in warm water, at the end of simmering. Serve with millet or sorghum.
Shop spirulina
Frequently asked
Why does it smell like the ocean?
That seaweed-and-pond note is a normal marker of cyanobacterial biomass; geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol are the two molecules responsible. Pair with citrus, cocoa or pineapple to soften it.
Is wild-harvested spirulina riskier than cultivated?
Both face the same fundamental question: is the source water clean. The variable specific to a wild lake is cyanotoxin from natural bloom dynamics, which is exactly why the harvest lot is analysed and why we send you the report before you order rather than asking you to take our word for it.
Vegan B12?
Spirulina contains pseudovitamin B12, which is not bioavailable in humans. Do not rely on it as a B12 source. We would rather tell you that plainly than let a label imply otherwise.
Is it certified organic?
No. It is wild-harvested from an open lake, which cannot be certified under schemes designed for cultivated land, and neither we nor the cooperative hold organic certification. What we document instead is the harvest lot, the location and the source-water test.
Why flake form for some lots?
The traditional Kanembu form is a thin sun-dried disc that breaks into flakes. We sell both the flake form, closer to the village product, and the milled powder, which is uniform and easier to dose into a formulation.