About Us

Hello. Here’s our story.

Once upon a time, a bunch of hippies… Our story could start there because some decades ago, a bunch of hippies drank murky water from grow jars containing a little known microalgae. They loved it. Word spread about its magical healing energy and groovy vibes. Needless to say, Zivo developed a cult following. 

Or we could start a bit further back, In the genteel interbellum…where an intrepid doctor and his phycologist friend carried a freshwater microalgae for reasons unknown all the way from a lake in the Alps to America between WWI and WWII. For years to come their handwritten anecdotal records would tell the remarkable tales of their patients (and their patients’ pets) who swore by the microalgae for its quite inexplicable yet no less miraculous healing properties. 

Or back further still. To a time none of us knew in which none knew time. Let’s say 650 million years ago. 750? Paleontologists and geochemists tend to disagree, and apparently it’s something that always puzzled Darwin – the story of our biological prehistory. Arguably the most revolutionary evolutionary (yea you read that right) transition in the history of the planet when algae caused an unprecedented burst of energy on Earth and basically powered the creation of all living creatures. And therein lies your answer, Mr Darwin. It’s algae to whom we owe the beautiful complexity of life around us today. 

How’s that for groovy.

So, in a word, algae is the story. The whole story. From changing the planet’s atmosphere billions of years ago by producing oxygen and paving the way for life (and providing half the planet’s oxygen supply still today). To forming the rich layer of oily goo down deep in the bowels of the Earth fueling everything we do everyday. To single handedly spawning our planet’s aquatic ecosystem. And in an act of sheer reckless wanton abandon, algae figured out UV protection among other clever and wildly complex adaptations so it could also dwell happily on land, thus creating the biodiversity that sustains life today.