Feed and feed material for fish farming

Fish farming is the fastest-growing food production sector on a global scale. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, fish farms will cover the majority of the global food fish supply by 2030. Demand for feed continues to grow, as fish farming is increasingly shifting from natural nutrition to feeding. Conventional raw materials are not sufficient and new feed materials are needed increasingly.

Benefits for customers

The Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) is an expert in the research and development and testing of feed and feed material based on customer needs. Together with Luke, customers can develop more competitive feed and feed material, whose production impact is thoroughly known, for offshore fish farming and water recirculation systems.

As a result of shared development activities, customers obtain information about the impact of feed and feed material on the appetite and growth of fish, the composition of fish meat, the digestibility of nutrients, the effectiveness of metabolism and any off-flavour.

Examples of our services:

• Identification of each customer’s needs for information
• Test planning based on customer-specific needs in a suitable test environment and in off-shore fish farming and water recirculation conditions
• Farming tests using salmonids
• Investigation of the impact of different types of feed on production properties
• Measurement of the nutritional quality of plant- and animal-based feed materials
• Production of confidential reports for customers

Why Luke?

Luke has research-based expertise in the development of various feed solutions. Knut-Olof Lerche, product manager at Raisioaqua, talks about how rape-based feed was developed in cooperation with Luke to produce feed for Benella rainbow trout:

“Our successful R&D activities were heavily customer-driven. Benella is based on research originating from business needs. By identifying different bottlenecks, research activities may benefit businesses, even in unexpected ways,” says Lerche, describing the successful R&D process.