Aquaculture giants commit to fish-free feed trial
Leading feed manufacturers and seafood producers - including Marine Harvest - have agreed to trial products developed by the winner or a finalist of the F3 Challenge.
China-based aquafeed manufacturers Alpha Feed and Guangdong Yuehai Feed Group and their Japanese counterpart Dainichi have also offered to trial feeds that result from the competition.
University of Arizona Professor Kevin Fitzsimmons, the former president of the World Aquaculture Society and lead spokesperson for the F3 Challenge, said: “This is the first time that so many large established companies have committed to offering fish-free feed trials, which signals a turning point toward viable and cost-effective alternatives to fishmeal and fish oil.”
Development milestone
Marine Harvest, the world’s largest producer of Atlantic salmon, has agreed to offer a trial to the winner of the F3 Challenge, should the novel feed or feed ingredient be appropriate for Atlantic salmon. The offer includes covering the costs of a pilot-scale feed trial at Marine Harvest’s research facility and 50 hours of researcher time.
China-based aquafeed manufacturers Alpha Feed and Guangdong Yuehai Feed Group have committed to run digestibility and grow-out trials for the winner or a finalist that has feeds for their species of interest.
“The F3 contest will become a milestone in the development of innovative and sustainable aquaculture,” said Alpha Feed chief technical officer Deng Deng.
In a joint statement to the F3 Challenge sponsors, Alpha Feed and Yuehai Feed said the importance of innovation in fish-free feed is to “protect the environment and depleting wild fisheries, increase the resilience of the aquafeed industry to the fluctuation of fishmeal production and price, and to make feeds more competitive in terms of cost”.
Japan-based Dainichi also said it was willing to test fish-free feed developed by the winner or a participant of the challenge in an effort to shift toward more economically viable aquafeeds.
$200,000 prize
The F3 Challenge was launched in November 2015 on the HeroX crowdfunding site to encourage innovation of alternative ingredients for aquaculture fishfeeds that are as nutritious and healthy to fish and consumers as conventional fish-based feeds.
A prize of $200,000 will be awarded to the first team to produce and sell 100,000 metric tonnes of aquafeeds that do not contain marine animal meal or oil by September 15, 2017.
The contest is intended to help catalyze the development and sale of viable cost-competitive aquafeeds free of fishmeal and fish oils. Contestants from Thailand, Indonesia, China, South Africa, Australia, Pakistan, Myanmar, the Netherlands and the US have advanced to the second sales reporting stage of the multi-stage contest to develop fish-free feed for the aquaculture industry. The second sale submission deadline is April 15, 2017.
