PLANT-BASED INGREDIENTS
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Positive results from Thai Union Feedmill’s shrimp feeding trial with a sustainable Nannochloropsis algae meal Martin Sabarsky, Barry Raleigh and Avery Kramer, Cellana LLC Increasingly, seafood consumers prefer sustainable products over their conventional counterparts. For aquafeeds, this involves replacing fishmeal and other feed inputs with more sustainable ingredients. Photosynthetic algae farmed on non-arable land using seawater and recycled CO2 represent one of the most promising new ingredients for sustainable aquafeeds given the low land, fresh water, and carbon footprints. While economic production of photosynthetic algae has proven challenging for aquafeeds, utilizing algae meal (the residual algae biomass remaining after extraction of lipids) as part of a multi-product algae “biorefinery” is a more viable option that companies like Cellana LLC have successfully pursued. Cellana’s strategy has been (1) to select and grow EPArich, photosynthetic algae, with EPA representing the most valuable omega-3 oil in the world, (2) to provide a nutraceutical-quality oil product using food-grade
Parameter Commercial Control (%) RD-A10 (10% Nannochloropsis) (%) Protein Fat Fiber Ash Moisture
37.86 6.41 2.73 10.48 10.60
Table 1. Chemical composition of the two feed formulations tested.
extraction technologies, and (3) to utilize the remaining high-protein algae meal containing valuable residual EPA omega-3s and pigments in aquafeeds and other food applications. This advantageous strategy doesn’t require a price premium or government subsidy. Economically sustainable returns can be generated from multi-product algae biorefineries while supplying increasing quantities of competitively-priced commodity inputs to food and feed customers.
Treatment Parameter Commercial Control RD-A10 (10% Nannochloropsis) P-value Initial Weight (g/shrimp)
3.60±0.09
3.60±0.07
1
Final Weight (g/shrimp)
14.36±2.12
14.00±0.71
0.763
Weight gain (g/shrimp)
10.75±2.13
10.40±0.68
0.763
298.92±60.35
288.81±17.35
0.758
0.17±0.03
0.17±0.01
0.791
Survival Rate (%)
62.86±14.75
55.00±8.21
0.388
Feed intake (g/shrimp)
14.20±2.30
14.52±0.77
0.804
Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR)
1.33±0.14
1.40±0.02
0.441
Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER)
2.00±0.20
1.80±0.03
0.136
Weight gain (%) ADG (g/days)
39.87 7.90 1.94 10.49 9.51
Table 2. Growth performance of Litopenaeus vannamei fed control diet and Nannochloropsis containing diet (10%) at week 9 (63 days). All values given as mean±sd (n=4).
The recent feed trials conducted by Thai Union Feedmill with Cellana algae meal A large feed trial involving Nannochloropsis algae meal was recently conducted by Thai Union Feedmill Co., Ltd. over 9 weeks, from late 2018 through February 2019, on the commercial shrimp species Litopenaeus vannamei. This trial
Aquafeed: Advances in Processing & Formulation Vol 11 Issue 3 2019
