As the global population grows, the demand for high-quality, protein-rich foods will continue to increase, and the aquaculture industry aims to help to fulfill this demand. Feed represents the major cost for farmed fish, and protein ingredients dominate the feed cost. Skretting, in collaboration with the NORCE and Sintef, plan to develop a sustainable and digestible protein affordable for salmon feed. This new protein source is known as single cell protein (SCP), and refers to dead, non-viable and processed dry cells of microorganisms such as yeast, which grow on different carbon sources. So far, SCP has high nutritional value as feed ingredient in salmon feed, supporting growth and survival of the fish.
This research project is the result of an agreement between Skretting, SINTEF and NORCE for the development of the
new single cell protein product.
Today, Skretting predicts that new sustainable sources of feed ingredients will be increasingly important for securing the
future production of aquaculture feed and it is then continuously scouting for alternative protein sources for
aquaculture feed ingredients. Skretting has embarked upon a series of ambitious, company-wide strategies that aim to
drive the aquaculture feeds expansion of the company, while following the principle to contribute to the reduction of
the aquaculture industries’ reliance on marine ingredients and ingredients that have a high environmental footprint.
The main idea of this project is to prepare for the future by developing yeast biomass into a high-quality protein source affordable to be used in salmon feeds. This can be achieved by development of a new processes for increasing protein digestibility and possibly increasing protein content of the yeast biomass. The knowledge created in this project will be used to scale-up and build an industrial process for the new yeast product.