Arbiom announced on 11 October it had completed a successful trial of its aquafeed ingredient additive SylPro on farmed Atlantic salmon.
SylPro is produced from wood through a patented process that produces dried yeast used as a nutritional protein source in aquafeed.
The study was conducted by Matis Icelandic Food & Biotech, and involved feeding juvenile Atlantic containing SylPro as a complement to or replacement for fishmeal and other plant-based proteins at various inclusion rates, according to the company. The study evaluated the product’s nutritional performance in terms of body weight gain as well as its effects on the gut microbiome, measured over a five-week trial period.
“The study results showed no statistical difference in body weight gain for SylPro compared to the control diet up to the 20 percent inclusion level. Additionally, there were no differences in fish mortality across treatments,” Arbiom said in a press release.
The results support the findings from previous trials that evaulated SylPro for use in raising hybrid striped bass.
“These findings indicate that SylPro can be used to replace fish meal or plant-based proteins in feed for juvenile Atlantic salmon, a crucial developmental stage, and deliver equivalent nutritional performance as conventional protein sources up to 20 percent inclusion level,” Matis representative Alexandra Leeper said.
The trial was part of Arbiom’s four-year international, multidisciplinary project dubbed SylFeed, which has the goal of scaling up Arbiom’s wood-to-food technology. SylFeed is being funded by the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.
“This represents another critical milestone in Arbiom’s path to commercializing the SylPro product as we continue to validate its efficacy across multiple animal feed applications,” Arbiom CEO Marc Chevrel said.
Further results from the trial will be shared at the Aquaculture Europe event in Berlin, Germany and the Global Aquaculture Alliance Leadership GOAL event in Chennai, India, in mid- to late-October.
