Enhanced Soy Protein for Salmonid Aquafeeds

Þróun á nýju bleikjufóðri 

(2018-2019) founded by AVS

Principal Investigator: David Benhaim 

​The proposed project has been developed to address one of the key issues limiting the economic and environmentally sustainable development of Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) aquaculture in Iceland. The long-term over-exploitation of global wild capture fisheries have driven a demand in the aquaculture industry to use proteins that are much lower cost and more readily available than fish meal to feed carnivorous fish like salmonids, including Arctic charr. This has led to soy meal becoming one of the key ingredients in salmonid aquafeeds. While soy meal can produce adequate growth, and does not affect the flesh quality, the application of this meal is currently sub-optimal.  Salmonids are not able to fully digest plant-based materials like soy. This means that the full potential nutritional and economic value of soy as a feed ingredient is not optimally utilised. The project proposed herein will increase the value of Icelandic aquaculture by up to 15% and provide invaluable support for the future upscaling of Arctic charr aquaculture.

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​Collaborators: 
-Matís ohf: Dr. Jón Árnason, Birgir Örn Smárason, Alexandra Leeper (PI, Phd student), Clara Sauphar (MSc student)
-SimplyFishAS: Dr. Wolfgang Koppe (Also of Matís ohf)
-Hólar University: Dr. David Benhaïm, Dr. Camille Leblanc, Benoît Berlizot (BSc intern).
-Norwegian University of Life Sciences: Prof. Margareth Øverland
-Laxá hf: Gunnar Örn Kristjánsson