Scientific methods: Improvement of fish gut health and gut microbiota

Gut microbiota is essential for a healthy fish. It can be influenced by genetic background of the fish, novel feed ingredients, and it can be stimulated by feed additives. But how can we quantify the composition of gut microbiota community in fish? Gut microbiota is elemental for fish health The composition of fish gut microbiota is of great importance for the host’s physiology, immunity and the use of feed. A …

Feeding practices, feed development and genetics have reduced nutrient loading of rainbow trout farming by over 70 %

In Finland, 47 million kilos of Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout are consumed annually. Only around 23.4%, that is 11 million kilos, is produced domestically(1). Reducing the environmental impact is a key factor for development of sustainable food production. In Finland, nutrient loading of aquaculture has been successfully reduced during the last decades with better feeding practices, feed development, animal breeding and other actions. Feed conversion ratio (FCR) is the …

Rising food needs in the world require actions where science and industry meets – Skretting ARC under the spotlight

The Skretting Aquaculture Research Centre is the global research organisation for Skretting, one of the biggest manufacturers and suppliers of aquaculture feeds. Skretting has long and impressive history – it was established already in 1899 in Stavanger, Norway. Skretting’s products and services are targeted to eight core species: Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout, seabass, seabream, shrimp, tilapia and tuna. AquaIMPACT focusses to first four of those. “Our mission is based on …

SPAROS brings nutrition technology knowledge and IT solutions to AquaIMPACT

SPAROS is a Portuguese technology-driven SME dedicated to the development of new products and tailored nutritional solutions for the aquaculture market. It offers the alliance of a strong scientific background in the areas of fish nutrition and aquaculture, with a pilot-scale feed technology platform. SPAROS’ has strong background in the development of tools, focusing on mechanistic modelling and omic technologies, to predict biological performance and feed utilization of fish under …

The evolution of fish feed ingredients: The transition to plant-based raw materials in fish feeds

Traditionally, the base raw materials for aquaculture feeds have been fishmeal and fish oil. Plant-based raw materials have replaced them in major amounts but specific means are needed to fulfill nutritional requirements of fish. Growing global demand for aquafeeds Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing animal food-producing sectors, the global growth exceeding human population growth. In contrast, the production of fishmeal and fish oil, the two traditional key elements …

The evolution of fish feed ingredients: Emerging raw materials

Plant-based feed raw materials have been revolutionary in terms of reducing the pressure on harvesting wild fish for feed but simultaneously they have been criticized for increasing the competition for land use and environmental deterioration. They also contain certain amounts of anti-nutritional factors that in many cases limit their inclusion at high rates in aquafeeds. New alternative raw materials have the potential to be part of aquafeed formulations without the …

New publication out – learn more about intestinal microbiota!

New publication, which is partly funded by AquaIMPACT project, has been published in Frontiers series. The publication Sex, Age, and Bacteria: How the Intestinal Microbiota Is Modulated in a Protandrous Hermaphrodite Fish can be found here as a full text: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.02512/full Authors of the publication are M. Carla Piazzon, Fernando Naya-Català, Paula Simó-Mirabet, Amparo Picard-Sánchez, Francisco J. Roig, Josep A. Calduch-Giner, Ariadna Sitjà-Bobadilla and Jaume Pérez-Sánchez.