FEATURE
Committed to vegetable ingredients for the aquafeed industry An Interview with Dick van Beek Aminola CEO, and Herjan Bekamp Aminola CIO
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minola B.V. was established in 2013 with the main office located in the agricultural heartland of the Netherlands (Barneveld). The goal of our company is to become one of the major drivers in the supply of high-value feed ingredients for the growing aquaculture industry in Europe. We noted the urgency to build on the future sustainability of this relatively young sector, which traditionally relies on marine sources of protein and oils with a finite availability. In the last decade we observed a shift towards inclusion of vegetable raw materials in aquafeed. There is a growing interest in specialty feed ingredients, which helps the aquafeed nutritionist to meet both physical and nutritional product targets. These in turn benefit fish health & growth, reduce faecal waste and contribute to efficient farm economics. Consumer demands also play an ever increasingly important part in this respect. Aminola B.V. is in that way sensitive to consumer demands and trends. We made it our mission to become the innovation partner for aquafeed producers and bring conventional, organic and new functional vegetable feed ingredients, tailored to the specific needs of fish nutritionists and purchasers. This is where we add value.’
What are the anticipated trends in the market?
Herjan: ‘At Aminola B.V. we believe in the added value of vegetable ingredients for aquafeed, but also for pet food
and young farm animals simply because of the sustainable availability, manageability of anti-nutritional factors and consumers requirements for more organically produced food. We have seen a decrease of fishmeal and oil usage in the aquafeed industry in the last 25 years as illustrated in the figure below for fishmeal. At the same time the use of vegetable origin raw materials has increased and currently constitutes over 50 percent of salmon diets as illustrated in the figures below for salmon feeds produced in Norway. Apart from the replacement of marine sourced raw materials there is a tendency towards more organic raw materials and the development of protein concentrates from vegetable sources.’
How does Aminola B.V. anticipate on trends in the market?
Dick: ‘We can illustrate our approach with two examples. We noticed recently an increased interest from European feed producers to use European soy, fuelled largely by consumer concerns regarding GMO’s and a wish for better sustainability and traceability of the food they consume. Aminola B.V. is addressing this trend by offering certified Non-GMO and European produced soy to our aqua feed clients in Europe, among others. Also, the increased consumer demand for organic food products has urged Aminola B.V. to become a certified supplier of organic ingredients. Supplying organic ingredients not only helps our clients to produce organic feeds, it also improves their aquaculture sustainability by lowering their environmental food print and conserving natural resources.’
30 | August 2018 - International Aquafeed