US agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland is broadening its product offering in aquaculture with a high-protein feed ingredient that can serve as a partial fishmeal replacement.
Speaking at the recent Aquaculture America show, John Bowzer, a research scientist with ADM Animal Nutrition said that the company’s new Proplex T feed ingredient can replace some use of fishmeal in the right life stages of fish for carnivorous fish like salmon. Plant proteins are often low in key amino acids such as methionine and threonine that Proplex T, created from dried fermentation biomass, can deliver as a partial fishmeal replacement, he added.
Salmon and similar species have specific requirements that feed ingredient suppliers like ADM are working to produce fishmeal and fish oil alternatives for, Stephanie Block, a research manager with the company said.
“Being a high protein and a highly digestible feed ingredient, it helps producers meet their amino acid requirements for fish that have very high protein and high amino acid needs,” she said of Proplex T, which the company plans to sell globally.
“We have registrations in many part of the world and we’re pursuing additional registrations so this is intended to be a global product” she said.
Fishmeal, fish oil alternatives
The feed ingredient launch comes as the global race to develop fishmeal and fish oil alternatives is heating up, spurred on by a desire to reduce reliance on forage fish stocks such as Peruvian anchovy.
ADM is known as one of the “ABCD” big four of agricultural commodities trading, along with Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus.ADM offers feed ingredients that can offer protein in fish feeds as well as supply omega-3s that feed makers normally supply through fish oil.
In 2016, ADM launched DHA Natur, a dried algae biomass rich in docosahexaenoic acid, known commonly as DHA.
DHA Natur is a highly-concentrated, non-genetically modified, vegetable source of DHA that’s derived through a controlled fermentation process that allows heterotrophic algae to be produced more efficiently than phototrophic algae.
In aquafeed, ADM said recently that it will build a new feed-premix facility in Xiangtan, in Hunan Province, central China, and announced the addition of aquaculture feed production lines at its existing Nanjing complex in Jiangsu Province, eastern China.
“Population growth and higher disposable incomes are continuing to support increased animal protein—and thus animal feed—demand in China,” said Brent Fenton, president of ADM Animal Nutrition.
“Our new Xiangtan feed-premix facility—our fifth animal feed plant in the country—will position us to continue meeting this increased demand in the central part of the country, and the addition of four aquaculture feed lines at our Nanjing plant will offer us entry into the growing Chinese high value specialty aquafeed market,” he said.
The Xiangtan plant will have the capacity to produce 120,000 metric tons annually of premix, concentrate, animal-complete, and fish-complete feeds, said ADM.The new plants will add to ADM’s network of animal nutrition facilities in China.
This comes as Bunge and Cargill also expand fast in aqua feed. Cargill has snapped up EWOS, the Norway-based salmon feed group, as well as bolstering its shrimp feed production in Ecuador with a joint venture with a local player, Naturisa. Cargill is also looking to produce omega 3 oils from canola seeds, for use in aqua feed.
Bunge has teamed up with algae specialist TerraVia to produce a product to replace fish oil in feed.
Source: undercurrentnews
