Veramaris has announced it has been chosen to be the alternative omega-3 feed ingredient partner for System’s Accelerator Project X Global, an innovation accelerator founded by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
Vermaris’s algae-based feed competed against 100 other ingredient suppliers to win one of the 10 places on the “FEED-X” Challenge. FEED-X is a program within Project X that is aiming to increase the use of alternate feeds, with a goal of getting 10 percent of the global feed industry to adopt alternative ingredients in value chains. That would represent shifting 107 million metric tons of feed to more sustainable ingredients.
Aquaculture has been highlighted by Project X as one of the value chains that is most responsible for biodiversity decline and climate change – hence the drive to improve the sustainability of feed ingredient sourcing.
“Veramaris was honored to be chosen by Project X to take part in the FEED-X program; this participation helps us to sharpen our focus,” Veramaris CEO Karim Kurmaly said. “We hope it can build a coalition for change that helps us to access markets much faster and help us to make a difference to people, fish and oceans.”
Sustainability, he added, is a core component of Veramaris’s business model.
“Sustainability is at the heart of our mission; to mitigate reliance on fish oil and fish meal and make a sustainable, natural feed ingredient more accessible,” Kurmaly said.
Project X Co-Founder and CEO Marcela Navarro said feed alternatives will be key to improving the sustainability of the industry.
“High performing sustainable alternatives such as Veramaris are a critical component of a hedging strategy for resilient value chains in the feed space,” Navarro said. “We are inspired by the opportunity to continue to collaborate with Veramaris; together, we will catalyze the paradigm shift required to bring sustainable breakthrough innovations to market.”
The announcement adds to a growing list of successes for Veramaris in the past year. The company won the Future of Fish Feed Challenge in 2019, and since then has had fish fed its omega-3 algal oil make it onto shelves in France and Germany. The company has also had success in studies, which have shown the algae-based oil can successfully replace fish oil, such as a recent study of California yellowtail.
Photo courtesy of Veramaris
