Farmed seaweed set for animal feeds
A project looking into the potential of using farmed Scottish seaweed in feed for terrestrial animals has won £44,000 in funding.
The initiative, which is a collaboration between Davidson Brothers (Shotts) Limited and the Scottish Association of Marine Science (SAMS), was one of two winners of the Interface Food & Drink legacy competition and will focus on the viability of an innovative pre-treatment process of seaweeds to produce a nutritional and sustainable supplement for feed products; biomass will also be a by-product.
The other project involves the innovative application of pyrolysis in converting waste plastic in the farming industry.
Helen Pratt, Project Manager at Interface Food & Drink – which is funded by the Scottish Funding Council and was set up with the aim of promoting partnerships between businesses and academics to drive innovation – said: “Working together, business and academics can push ahead with really ground-breaking innovations which enhance the sustainability of the businesses in all senses of the word, and help the evolution of the dream of a circular economy into reality
“These two projects, which will be the last funded through an Interface Food & Drink competition, stood out as not only having the potential to make a real difference to the individual businesses involved, but also to the wider industry, not only in their own competitive sectors but to primary production as a whole. The sustainability factor of both projects appealed greatly to the judges.”
Gary Dow, Company Accountant, of Davidsons Animal Feeds, said: “Our aim has always been to provide our customers with value for money products that are high performance in their use for livestock production. By collaborating with experts from SAMS we hope to introduce a new, sustainable feedstock into our ingredients while maintaining the quality and high nutritional values our customers expect.”
