Prairie AquaTech
Prairie AquaTech of Brookings, South Dakota, U.S.A., has gotten attention this year for the release of ME-PRO, a plant-based protein ingredient to be used in aquaculture feed.
At its manufacturing facility in nearby Volga, South Dakota, Prairie AquaTech has several 50,000-gallon bioreactors in which the company ferments soybean meal with a naturally occurring microorganism or microbe, using sugars as a feedstock. The end product is “guaranteed 70 percent protein, highly digestible” that can be included in salmonid, shrimp, and marine diets at high inclusion rates. According to CEO Mark Luecke, rainbow trout currently being sold at Whole Foods Market are raised on a diet with a ME-PRO inclusion rate of 35 percent.
“Our technology can handle many types of plant protein. Soybean meal has a good starting protein content, about 45 percent,” Luecke told the Advocate. “But there are a number of antinutritional factors that need to be addressed, like allergenic proteins, oligosaccharides, and complex carbohydrates. Our process increases protein content, also making it more digestible.”
Trials in the company’s own recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) at its research facility have shown ME-PRO to result in drastically lower phosphorous discharges from fish waste and is contaminant-free.
“If you’re feeding in an aquatic environment, anything not digested by fish or shrimp ends up back in the water. Water quality leads to many issues, like disease, unwanted growth of algal blooms and polluted estuaries,” Luecke said. “We’re focused on the digestibility of the nutrients in the feed formulation. If we focus on having the most digestible nitrogen and phosphorous, it won’t be our ingredient causing issues in aquatic environments. When a farmer buys a metric ton of feed with our ingredient, they’re getting full utilization of the nutrients.”
While soy is the primary plant product being used because of its extensive and successful usage in aquaculture to date, Luecke said the company is looking at other substrates like dried distillers grain and canola.
Photo courtesy of Global Aquaculture Alliance
