San Diego, California, U.S.A.-based Menon Renewable Products, an animal feed innovator and biotech start-up, has been granted European Union certification for its sustainable feed ingredient, MrFeed.
The certification permits Menon to sell MrFeed to aquaculture and livestock operators across Europe. The company said its first MrFeed distributor will “be the largest producer of sea bream and sea bass fish in the E.U.” – a subsidiary of Avramar Group.
With the E.U. certification, Menon can show its customers that it has “taken care of its regulatory obligations appropriately,” the firm said. The certificate can be applied throughout Europe, as it covers different countries’ legislative requirements during the accreditation process, Menon said.
“MrFeed was developed with the goal of replacing both antibiotics and unsustainable ingredients like fishmeal in livestock and aquaculture diets around the world, and this is another step toward the achievement of that mission,” Menon Founder and President Suresh Menon said. “Through each of our studies, we have proven that our product can replace ingredients like blood meal, soymeal, poultry meal, fishmeal, and various enzymes while strengthening the overall economics for farmers.”
Avramar-owned Kegoagri SA, which is based in Greece, is set to be the first distributor of MrFeed for the European market. The largest producer of farmed Mediterranean fish in the world, Avramar has farms in Greece and Spain, and supplies sea bass, sea bream, meager, and red porgy.
Menon said that the company looks forward to sharing MrFeed – which has been tested in the diets of many animals including swine, poultry, finfish, and shrimp – across European channels.
“We are pleased to now be able to share our product with those in the aquaculture and livestock sectors across Europe. MrFeed is a disruptive technology that is already being produced at scale with pricing that is competitive to traditional feed formulations, even before factoring in the economic benefits. There is currently no product on the market that can deliver the performance benefits of MrFeed while delivering on a key sustainability challenge – the elimination of ingredients like fishmeal from animal diets,” Menon said.
MrFeed is rich in amino acids and contains crude protein “that is superior to commonly used feed ingredients,” the company said. Last year, a study released by the Global Aquaculture Alliance, now the Global Seafood Alliance, discovered that Pacific white shrimp fed a diet containing Veramaris’ natural marine algal oil and Menon’s MrFeed had higher survival rates when faced with acute hepatopancreatic necrosis syndrome (AHPNS) than those fed fishmeal and fish oil.
According to its website, the E.U. certification “operates throughout Europe and incorporates the legislative requirements of different countries as part of its certification process.”
“This uniform certification indicates that the company fulfills the legislative criteria required in each country,” the website states.
Photo courtesy of Menon Renewable Products
