As you have read, ingredient flexibility is an increasingly essential part of aquaculture sustainability. At Skretting, we firmly believe that additional alternatives are to be found in the novel ingredients sector.
Our R&D has taken us to the forefront of the development and implementation of novel ingredients in the aquafeed space. We are already providing commercial feeds that are independent of fishmeal and have recently validated diets that are free of both fishmeal and fish oil.
With their meticulous attention to detail, the nutrition experts within Skretting ARC are appraising many such products. They are seeking to understand their full nutritive profile and also establish to what degree they can be incorporated in aquaculture diets. As with all of the new ingredients that we test, these evaluations focus on the four main attributes of sustainability, food safety, nutritional value, and functionality.
Currently, very few novel ingredients are commercially available to the feed industry, but there are many young companies working hard to try and achieve the scale necessary to make their application in aquaculture feeds successful. Part of their challenge is to make these solutions available at prices that are viable for the value chain. Nevertheless, this is a very new area for aquaculture and we are giving it significant encouragement. From an innovation perspective, we are really pushing hard to make these alternatives available in order to give fish and shrimp farmers the opportunity to use them.
We have also learned that it is important to work with these start-up and scale-up companies from the early development stages. Through these close collaborations, we believe we can help them to adapt and optimise their processes and make sure that they are producing the levels of quality and consistency that we require in our aquafeeds.
We have also learned that it is important to work with these start-up and scale-up companies from the early development stages. Through these close collaborations, we believe we can help them to adapt and optimise their processes and make sure that they are producing the levels of quality and consistency that we require in our aquafeeds. Therefore, once the volumes do indeed become available, and there is sufficient willingness from the value chain, we will be in a position to use them immediately.
Our R&D has taken us to the forefront of the development and implementation of novel ingredients in the aquafeed space. We are already providing commercial feeds that are independent of fishmeal and have recently validated diets that are free of both fishmeal and fish oil. For the first time, salmon has been grown in commercial conditions from sea transfer to harvest with diets that did not contain marine ingredients (no fishmeal and no fish oil). And although this could be our ultimate goal, our investment in this area is not slowing. Quite the contrary. Inspired by our recent breakthroughs in the salmon sector, we are firmly committed to providing a platform for aquaculture – encompassing as many species and production regions as possible – to grow sustainably and thereby increase the industry’s contribution to global food security.
One of our main objectives is to develop and provide unique combinations of products, services and models that help fish and shrimp farmers globally to increase their productivity, support the health of their animals and farms, and to also minimise the environmental impacts of their operations.
