Kona Blue Water Farms on Monday announced that it received a National Marine Fisheries Service Saltonstall-Kennedy grant to research alternative proteins to reduce the reliance on marine products in aquaculture feeds.
Kona Blue’s project will look at three sustainable sources of protein as a substitute for fishmeal in the diets of Kona Kampachi®, a yellowtail relative the company raises off the coast of Hawaii’s Big Island. The protein sources include microalgal byproducts from biofuels production, a single cell protein made from food processing water, and a fish protein concentrate filtered from the wastewater of fish processing plants.
For the study, Kona Blue will substitute these various protein sources at different ratios into the Kona Kampachi diet and compare growth rates, food conversion ratios and product quality to that of fish fed their standard commercial diet.
The research project will begin in July.
“By using byproducts from other processes, we can re-use resources, rather than deplete them,” said Jennica Lowell, Kona Blue research manager and principal investigator for the project. “Not only do we lessen our reliance on Peruvian anchovies as a source of protein for our fish, but we also find value in byproducts or effluents from other food processing or fuel systems.”
