Stavanger, Norway-based feed and fingerling producer Skretting has launched a new specialty feed for broodstock, optimized its barramundi growth model, and opened a new research center.
Vitalis PRIMA is Skretting’s new marine broodstock diet designed to better support the health of parent fish and young fry. The product, which incorporates new technology and research recently completed by the company, replaces Vitalis CAL in the company’s product line. It is intended for sea bass, sea bream, halibut, amberjack, turbot and cobia broodstock.
“As well as seeing increased fry survival through improved embryo vitality, hatcheries wanted diets that were much more compliant with the recirculation systems that they use, they also asked for the feed to be much more appealing to broodstock that can often stop feeding during the spawning window,” Skretting Product Manager said in a press release.
The company said the new feed has been formulated to increase fry survival through improved embryo vitality; improve its appeal to broodstock when feeding slows during spawning; and improve the appearance of broodstock through addition of a marine algae blend. The feed contains algal oil to improve its sustainability metrics and is specifically designed to be compatible with recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS).
Combined with Skretting’s Vitalis Repro, which is specialized feed for marine fish outside of the spawning window and designed to maintain their optimal spawning condition, the company provides “a complete feeding program for broodstock fish,” Skretting South Europe Fish Health Diets Manager Julio Docando-Valencia.
“[They] make a considerable contribution to Skretting’s standing as market leader in the field of broodstock nutrition. We are very excited about the long-term benefits that this will bring for farmers of marine species throughout the world,” Docando-Valencia said.
Additionally, Skretting has launched AquaSim, a new precision modeling system for the farming of barramundi, also known as Asian sea bass. The suite of digital tools is built upon the company’s database of historical records, which it said more helped it to form a more accurate growth model for the species. The model can help barramundi farmers formulate a tailored feeding protocol to optimize the performance of their aquaculture systems, according to Skretting Digital Innovation Director Kristoffer Tveit.
“We worked with a large new production dataset of barramundi reared under a variety of environmental conditions both in net pens, tanks, and ponds to develop this new model,” Tveit said. “The recent data was collected from South East Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. In addition, we had our own growth data from nutritional research trials at the Skretting ARC Hezhoubei Research Station. The growth model is now more robust for all growth predictions and clearly improved for large barramundi larger than two kilograms. Furthermore, it was interesting to see that small barramundi have a higher optimum temperature than large barramundi, which is something we have seen in other species.”
The new model will be part of a new precision feeding and farming service for barramundi customers offered by Skretting in the Asia-Pacific region, where barramundi farming has rapidly grown in popularity in the past decade, it said.
“Skretting anticipates that the production of barramundi, which is increasingly being regarded as ‘the white salmon’ due to its premium potential in the marketplace, will continue on this strong growth trend, and is committed to supporting its customers through precision services and premium feed solutions,” the company said.
Cutting-edge research and development continues to be a cornerstone of Skretting’s business model, according to Skretting R&D Director Alex Obach. Advances in biological sciences combined with the development of computing, data processing, and artificial intelligence “are fueling a new wave of technological innovation that will influence many sectors, including aquaculture,” Obach said.
In response, Skretting hass launched The Bubble, a new research facility that will be part of the Skretting Aquaculture Research Centre (ARC). The new facility “will enable the team of scientists at Skretting ARC to better understand the complexity of physiological interactions of aquaculture species using many technologies mirrored in the human health sector, including the same techniques that are used to detect breast cancer and pathogens like COVID-19,” it said.
"This facility will help us understand mechanisms behind effects, essentially finding out the ‘why’,” Obach said. “We are not just observing changes, but we are understanding them to a greater extent than ever before. Why do some fish grow better? Why are some more resistant to challenges? When we understand the why, we can go further in our innovation. We are extremely excited about the opportunities these technologies offer Skretting and the aquaculture industry.”
The facility will enable Skretting to use processes such as microarray, qPCR, OMICs, cell culture, rapid analytics, and quantitative histology to study the fundamental causes of challenges and risks for aquatic animals. It will also lead to advances in sustainability and cost savings, the company said.
“Having our own radical innovation centre will extend the scope of techniques used in-house and accelerate the development of our products and to support our customers to better understand the biological challenges they face,” Skretting CEO Therese Log Bergjord said. “It reinforces Skretting’s commitment to be at the front line of the rapidly developing aquaculture industry.”
Photo courtesy of Skretting
