Millennial Salmon

Millennial Salmon is a strategic partnership among world leading European organizations along the value chain of the salmon farming industry, including R&D (Nofima & Sintef Ocean-Norway), feed (EWOS Cargill-Norway) and raw material (Innovafeed-France & Corbion-The Netherlands) producers and a retailer (Auchan-France), with the aim to create a knowledge based sustainable salmon product that answers to modern Millennial principles of life, considering technoeconomic, animal welfare, environmental and societal aspects as a whole. The Black soldier fly meal producer Innovafeed and heterotrophic microalgae biomass producer Corbion operate with minimum land and resource use compared to competing alternatives which is critical for the project as Millennial salmon focus on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies to provide a comprehensive figure on climate impact of the new technologies, setting the stage for a Millennial generation salmon in the markets. The project concept is based on utilizing efficient technologies such as fermentation and circular economy transformation of industrial side stream biomasses into microalgae and insects for a sustainable production of low trophic species as ingredients for aquafeed. Combining DHA-rich Schizochytrium limacinum biomass and Black Soldier Fly Insect meal enables satisfying large parts of the nutritional requirements of salmon in long chain omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and high-quality proteins, allowing for sustainable future growth in the salmon farming industry without the need of further deforestation or compromising wild fish biodiversity. The project works will focus on optimally maximizing dietary inclusion of heterotrophic microalgae and insect meal substituting large part of fish oil and soy without negative effects in salmon health, welfare, and performance or in the physical feed properties, as well as to demonstrate the environmental and societal aspects of the suggested innovations. The project works in the first reporting period concentrated on Work Package 1 (WP1) activities, investigating the effects of including the liquid Corbion microalgae biomass at different inclusion levels in extruded feed pellets for Atlantic salmon either in the extruder mix or coating process, on both the technical properties of the produced pellets and microalgal biomass nutrient digestibility in Atlantic salmon smolt. The physical properties of the resulting pellets regarding hardness, durability, expansion, water stability and microstructure visualized in CT scans, were studied. The digestibility trial is still on-going. The partners have established and attending regular project meetings and dedicated to communicating the project with its objectives through interviews, press releases and the project?s first newsletter, published on October 1st, 2021.

Millennial Salmon is a strategic partnership among organisations along the value chain of salmon production with the aim to create a knowledge based sustainable product that answers to modern Millennial principles of life, considering technoeconomic, animal welfare, environmental and societal aspects as a whole. The cooperation of two world leaders in Novel Feed Ingredient production (InnovaFeed and Corbion), operating with minimum land and resource demand compared to competing alternatives, and the project’s focus on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach to provide an comprehensive figure on climate impact, will set the stage for a Millennial generation salmon in the markets. The project concept is based on utilising efficient technologies such as fermentation and circular economy transformation of industrial side stream biomasses into microalgae and insects for a sustainable production of low trophic species for ingredients for aquafeed. The combination of Corbion DHA-rich Schizochytrium limacinum biomass and InnovaFeed Black Soldier Fly Larvae meal will enable satisfying large parts of the nutritional requirements of salmon in high quality proteins and Long Chain omega 3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids, allowing for sustainable future growth in salmon industry without the need of further deforestation or compromising wild fish biodiversity. The Millennial Salmon value chain in the consortium is completed by the active participation in the project of the globally leading feed producer Cargill, the salmon producer MOWI, the French salmon processing company Labeyrie and the French retailer Auchan. The project works will focus on optimally maximising dietary inclusion of heterotrophic microalgae and insect meal substituting large part of fish meal, soy protein concentrate and fish oil without negative effects in salmon health, welfare and performance or in the physical feed properties, as well as to demonstrate the environmental and societal aspects of the suggested innovation. The Millennial salmon project will have significant European impact including leading stakeholders from Norway (Nofima, Sintef Ocean, Cargill/ EWOS), the Netherlands (Corbion) and France (InnovaFeed, Auchan).