Effect of replacing fish meal with vegetable proteins in diets for Atlantic cod

Development of a sound cod farming industry requires great attention to feeds and feeding regimes resulting in cost-effective production and satisfactory quality of final product. These issues have already been addressed in an ongoing project (NFR-project : 145352 - Feed and feeding regimes for cost effective production of cod) carried out by the present applicants. In principle, we now know how to formulate diets for cod, which give good growth, a low feed conversion ratio, a predictable liver index and a very acceptable product quality. Present knowledge was gained using fishmeal based diets. In a future perspective, taking the prognoses given for cod production as well as the foreseen supply of marine raw materials into consideration, this would not be a sustainable solution. Diets for cod in all life stages, will be very high in protein and relatively low in fat, thus more flexibility is required with respect to the use of protein raw materials. Vegetable protein sources like soya and corn gluten, are the most obvious candiates for partial inclusion in cod feed. To date, acceptable inclusion levels for growth, feed conversion, fish health and product quality are not known. The project applied here, aims at clarifying these issues.