Novel ingredients

In tumultuous times in particular, the priority for our procurement team is availability - ensuring we have the right nutrients available at the right location to ensure uninterrupted supply to our customers.

With commodity prices remaining high, we are focused on alternative ingredients and suppliers to spread the risk and keep costs down. This has created opportunities for several novel ingredients to become more competitive.

In 2022 we made important progress in novel ingredients, increasing our overall inclusion rate from 0.064% to 1% of total raw materials purchased.

The volume increase was partially due to our increased usage of omega-3 alternatives, such as algae and omega-3 canola oil. Several of these oils are now commercially available and implemented in most of our aquafeed businesses. We saw good tailwind behind the introduction of novel vegetable raw materials, such as horse bean starch and concentrated maize distillers' grains, and we are pleased that these products, developed specifically for the feed industry, are finding their way into aquafeed diets.

Skretting was only able to achieve this progress through a constant focus on novel market opportunities. We fully utilise our global procurement, quality assurance and R&D resources to identify, develop and implement ingredients that fit into our novel strategy, which is to focus first and foremost on low-footprint and right-cost ingredients.

Bringing novel ingredients to commercial scale

Collaboration between start-ups and large corporates is key for fostering innovation in sustainable aquafeed. The corporate brings decades of experience in scale up and fish nutrition, and start-ups help corporates to develop new sustainable products.

This is exactly what happened with our collaboration with Skretting. EniferBio got off to a flying start in validating PEKILO® single cell protein in salmon feed after winning the 2020 Nutreco Feed & Food Tech Challenge. The prize was a digestibility trial in salmon. The trial proved that the protein digestibility of PEKILO® was comparable to the digestibility of fishmeal.

The interaction with the team at Skretting has been just excellent and we look forward to more future highlights.

Heikki Keskitalo, Co-founder, EniferBio

Now the collaboration has reached a new level and Skretting is finalising a large-scale salmon growth trial which will validate the feed formulation at the right inclusion rate of PEKILO® protein for salmon.

The goal is to proceed to an offtake agreement, a key milestone for the investment decision of the full industrial scale (10 kT/a) PEKILO® protein plant that is currently planned to be built in France in the coming years. Currently, European salmon farming is dependent on imported protein ingredients. A dramatic increase in European protein crop farming is not likely because of the temperate climate.

However, scaling PEKILO® protein production is quite straightforward due to its previous 15-year operational history at industrial scale. The biggest challenge for a start-up like eniferBio is get conservative partners in the commodities industries convinced to team up with us. A major focus for eniferBio has been the bioethanol industry having the largest suitable raw material base for the PEKILO® production.

The offtake agreement would significantly speed up the investment decision for the first PEKILO® production plant, which in turn would be an important reference for the following production plants. For example, Europe’s largest bioethanol plants have an annual production capacity of 500 million litres of ethanol or more. The distillation residue from one such plant alone could support the production of ~50 kT of PEKILO® protein and make a sizeable impact even at the scale of Norwegian aquaculture and Skretting. This would be a prime example of sustainable circular economy within Europe with a positive impact on land use.

EniferBio has been very satisfied with the collaboration with Skretting to date. The interaction with the team at Skretting has been just excellent and we look forward to more future highlights.

Seeding innovation for the future of aquaculture

Nuseed is a global leader in seed development. Established in Australia in 2006, Nuseed expanded to Europe and the Americas to cultivate the power of plants for sustainable seeds, energy, and nutrition.

Aquaterra® Advanced Omega-3 demonstrates this commitment to revolutionary innovation. Nuseed developed the world’s first canolabased source of DHA and EPA. There is gap between how much omega-3 oil the ocean can supply and how much more aquaculture needs to support fish health. Feed inclusion rates for these essential nutrients have declined as production has increased over the past twenty years, yet study after study indicates the benefits of high omega-3 content for fish health and fillet nutrition.

Just one to two hectares of Nuseed Omega-3 Canola produces as much DHA as 10,000 kg of wild caught fish oil

Katrina Benedicto, Sustainability & Marketing Director, Nuseed Nutritional

The United Nations Sustainable Ocean Coalition is calling on aquaculture to increase seafood production six-fold by 2050, as wild caught fish cannot reproduce fast enough to meet the protein demands of a growing population. Novel sources of long-chain fatty acids are vital to expanding our business without adding pressure to marine resources.

As leaders in sustainable food production Aquaterra® is well aligned with Skretting’s goals and values. Just one to two hectares of Nuseed Omega-3 Canola produces as much DHA as 10,000 kg of wild caught fish oil. This crop can double the current supply of long-chain fatty acids on less than 5% of existing canola producing land. A significant challenge for novel ingredients is proving efficacy and gaining market entry. Skretting has been an instrumental partner in introducing Aquaterra® to salmon feeds by testing and validating the quality of this oil before launching into commercial scale production and advising on best formulations to increase total omega-3 while improving key sustainability indicators, including FFDRo and GHG.

Since the commercial launch in 2020, Aquaterra has become an important tool for reducing dependence on foraged fish oil in Skretting’s Chilean and Canadian operations. The partnership will continue to expand as Nuseed gains regulatory approval in additional salmon production markets

Next: Progress through collaboration

Engaging with internal and external stakeholders is key to ensuring we invest the right focus and effort in continuous improvement and dealing with the complex issues that face the future of sustainable food.