Three animal feed manufacturers have won a total of US$300,000 in a contest to develop and market aquaculture feeds that do not use ingredients from wild-caught fish.
Star Milling Co, Empagran and Jiangsu Fuhai Biotech Co each won US$100,000 in the F3 (Future of Fish Feed) Challenge – Carnivore Edition. The content challenges manufacturers to produce feed that does not contain fishmeal or fish oil.
Each year, an estimated 16 million tonnes of wild fish are caught exclusively for use as fishmeal and fish oil in global food production. Aquaculture now provides well over half of the world’s seafood and is the main consumer of these oil-rich fish such as sardines, anchovies and menhaden.
“We congratulate all the contestants who rose to the challenge despite all the recent adversity and supply chain disruptions,” said Kevin Fitzsimmons, professor at the University of Arizona and chair of the F3 Challenge.
“Their hard work and flexibility paid off.”
The prizes were awarded in each of three categories—salmonid, shrimp, and other carnivorous species—to the contestant that produced and sold the most ‘fish-free’ feed made without wild-caught fish or any marine-animal ingredient.
US-based Star Milling was honoured for its non-GMO plant-based feed for rainbow trout whilst Ecuadorian company, Empagran, won for its vegetarian feed for Pacific white shrimp which uses Veramaris’s algal oil. Finally, Fuhai Biotech received its award for Fatide, a proprietary fermented soybean-based feed for bass. Japan-based Dainichi Corporation received an honourable mention award of US$25,000 prize for its breakthrough feed for red sea bream.
