AQUAFEED ▶▶▶
Towards more sustainable fish feed
Brand-new developments in sustainable ingredients, including ‘circular’ ingredients from waste and from nature.
BY TREENA HEIN, CORRESPONDENT H
Blue mussels appear to be a promising feed ingredient that could replace fishmeal.
ow is aquafeed currently evolving to become much more sustainable and what can we expect to see in the future? Building on past advances, new innovations are being realised with oil and
protein aquafeed ingredients that replace oil and meal from both fish and terrestrial crop sources. In addition, there is ac- tive investigation in many countries of highly-sustainable ‘cir- cular’ feeds that incorporate waste of various types.
Fish oil and meal replacement While fish oil and meal make ideal feed ingredients for many aquaculture species, especially carnivorous salmonids, re- placements are needed because of sustainability concerns. To replace these ingredients, years ago the global aquafeed sec- tor turned to oils and meals made from crops such as soy- bean and canola. These currently constitute 70-80% of aqua- feed ingredients, according to the Institute of Marine
Research (IMR) in Norway. However, oils and meals from crops create imbalances in terms of fatty acids and amino ac- ids, along with less-than-ideal palatability and digestibility (beyond the environmental and social justice concerns with soybean production in some countries). In terms of new pro- tein sources, according to Rick Barrow, aquafeed consultant and retired USDA fish nutritionist, facilities to produce a cost-competitive protein concentrate from feed-grade barley are under construction in the US and Europe. Commercialisa- tion of single-cell protein (SCP) from yeast and bacteria sources for aquafeeds, adds Barrow, has already been achieved by firms such as Calysta, KnipBio and NovoNutri- ents. University of Idaho scientists recently published a study showing that a commercial SCP bacteria-based product has a nutrient profile (oil, protein plus) similar to wild-capture fish- meal, but SCP had already been commercially-produced in the 1990s in Finland from forestry residues (for pig feed). Microalgae also contain oil and protein, and it is not easy to compare them with SCP in terms of sustainability. Both SCP and microalgae production require inputs of carbon chains. The microalgae used commercially right now are ‘hetero- trophic’ and not ‘autotrophic’ This means that they use light through photosynthesis to capture CO2
from the air as a car- bon source. It would be a significant breakthrough, notes IMR 12 ▶ ALL ABOUT FEED | Volume 29, No. 4, 2021
PHOTO: ANDERS KIESSLING
PHOTO: ANDERS KIESSLING
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