Scotland’s booming whisky and salmon industries are to partner up to produce whisky-based fish feed to boost the sustainability of the salmon and fish farming sectors.
Over 500 million litres of whisky are produced in the UK each year and for every litre, up to 15 litres of co-products can be generated.
Chemical engineers from Heriot-Watt University in Scotland are looking to convert some of the co-products into fish feed, which they say could provide a sustainable and economic supply of feedstock for the growing Scottish fish farming industry.
Dr Nik Willoughby, who is leading the project at Heriot-Watt University, told World Fishing and Aquaculture: "With this particular project, our focus was on future demand for aquaculture as the world’s population increases, and how that might be met, and how the protein to do this could be sourced sustainably."
He said it has been known for a while that barley protein could be nutritionally suitable for many diets, including salmon, "but growing barley just for aquaculture is inefficient and protein recovery challenging".
"Scotch Malt Whisky is made from barley as a sole grain, and the liquid byproduct of the still, called pot ale, contains the majority of the barley proteins in a form that can be recovered and made into a protein product," he added.
A pilot plant trial of the Horizons Project is scheduled for August 2014 in a whisky distillery.
This will allow the chemical engineers to produce a large enough quantity of protein for a full feed trial in salmon, incorporating the protein into a feed formulation.
Mr Willoughby said to WF&A: "We see this source as complimentary to current animal protein sources for salmon such as fish meal, and more suitable than other vegetable sources from a nutritional and sustainability point of view."
Once demonstrated successfully, production is expected by 2016.
