Feedpro Ltd.
The Company develops novel microparticles: their potential as delivery systems for nutrients and bioactive materials to larvae of marine organisms having high commercial value
The annual supply of food from aquatic sources (marine and fresh water) is presently about 90 million metric tons (MMT), the vast majority of which comes from natural fisheries. Unfortunately, the supply from these natural resources have reached their maximum capacity and in fact, will begin to decline in the near future. To exasperate the problem further, the predicted demand for fish to satisfy human consumption, based only on population growth (FAO ), is expected to double or even triple within the next 30 years. This increase in demand can only be supplied through aquaculture and, with dwindling unpolluted fresh water supply, particularly from marine aquaculture.
Marine aquaculture is the rearing of marine organisms as food for human consumption. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations indicates that aquaculture grows yearly at a rate of 10%, or about 20 MMT, which is faster than the beef, pig and chicken industry. In fact, the production of farmed aquatic organisms will surpass , in 2030, the annual world beef production!
The bottleneck for aquaculture to meet this increasing world wide demand for aquatic protein is providing a continuous supply of of fingerlings (fish) and post-larval shrimps for stocking in ponds and cages. This production is hampered by the low survival of the larval or early developmental stages of marine fish, which can range between 0.1-20%, depending on the species. Therefore, the basis of dependable production in marine aquaculture is ensuring high and consistent larval survival in captivity. In order to reach this goal research and development has focused on providing the nutrition necessary for good growth and development during these critical early life stages.
The diet of the larvae of both freshwater and marine fish and shrimps reared in culture is predominantly the zooplanktonic organisms rotifers (Brachionus sp.) and brine shrimp (Artemia sp.). However, the cost in frastructure, trained labor and energy to mass culture these zooplankters represent a significant outlay in investment and running costs. Moreover, these microscopic organisms are not the natural diet of the early stages of fish and shrimp and lack nutrients such as essential fatty acids (EFA) necessary for the well being of the larvae. Consequently, the live food has to be further enriched with costly commercial preparations of these fatty acids in order to ensure good larval growth and survival. In addition, the provision of live food is characteristically plagued with variable supply and nutritional quality. Although rotifers can be reared in continuous culture, Artemia, which represents the majority of live food expense, is purchased as a marketed product in the form of desicated resting eggs (cysts) harvested from high saline aquatic environments such as Great Salt lake in Utah and other regions around the world.. As a natural commodity the availability of Artemia cysts can severely oscillate according to unregulated harvesting and/or unexpected precipitation (El Nino) and temperature changes affecting the salinity and suitability of the aquatic environment.
Despite that the world supply of of Artemia resting eggs climbing from 2500 tons in 1999 to 9000 tons, the complete dependence of the aquaculture industry on this natural commodity and the pressure to increase production of fish and shrimp, larvae necessary to satisfy world demand, has stressed further this dwindling resource. The result has been widely fluctuating prices which reached 130-150$/kg US only three years ago in a market estimated to be over 300 million $US dollars per year.
Consequently a great deal of interest has been generated to develop an off-the –shelf artificial larval microdiet (MD) as an economic live food alternative. However, larviculture of fish and shrimp based on MDs has proven to be an elusive goal as solving the dual complexities of the larva’s evolving nutrient requirements and the technology necessary to provide a suitably sized, attractive and fully digestible food particle has been daunting. Early on, researchers realized that the poor performance of MDs is related to the variable acceptance and attraction of the particle for the larvae compounded by inadequate ingestion, digestion and assimilation. We have developed at the NCM a novel approach to the production of microdiets that offer the potential of three unique features. 1. A MD that can satisfy the protein, trace element, lipid and EFA requirement of the larvae by controlling the leaching of these nutrients in the water column. 2. A MD that stimulates the physiology of the larvae to improve MD attraction, digestion and assimilation by providing selected free amino acids that are attractants or stimulate digestive hormones regulating enzyme release into the gut lumen. 3. A delivery system for bioactive materials to improve the health and robustness of the larvae which can include compounds that stimulate the immune system or offer therapeutic agents against disease and infection. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge this approach has not yet been implemented with other products in the evolving market for live food replacement preparations.
Based on the fact that the market is open to accept a replacement of Artemia whose natural supply is limited and unstable, we believe that the proposed product has a very high market penetrating capacity. The product can be sold at high prices as farmers who use it will save about 60$ for every 100$ spent in resting Artemia cysts. The sources of this saving are:
- Artemia hatching rate can be as low as 50% and a significant % of the kg purchased is egg shell which cannot be used by the fish and in fact causes problems if swallowed. This means that the
- The price of infrastructure needed to take care of the Artemia prior to their use in the larval tanks (enrichment, heating, aeration, manpower).
- The cost of enrichment materials to enrich the Artemia is substantial ($50-60/kg). Moreover, there is frequently Artemia mortality after enrichment which reduces the number of Artemia further for feeding the larvae from the original kg purchased. In contrast, a kg of microdiet purchased is a kg of food for the larvae.
Clearly, the microdiets have a wide potential as their market can be widened from marine larva fish to include shrimps followed by becoming sophisticated additive to feeds of adult fish (an annual market of 2-3 billion $US).
The annual Artemia market is presently 200-300 million $US. We believe that these microdiets can aim eventually at replacing 25% of this market. In addition, the aquarist market, which, albeit much smaller, presently uses mainly dry feeds and could be considered another market to target. Finally, the present annual growth of 10% in aquaculture, is expected to double or even triple the market from its present size (FAO 2000; New, 1997)! The increase in the consumer base and the penetration of the product via marketing can increase the sales of the product by 5-10 million $US, annually. Moreover, a further increase in sales can be expected by expanding the market to include shrimp feeds and as a feed additive to pelleted diets for growout of fish from fry to market weight.
The market size for immunostimulants is potentially substantial:
- According to Bob Rosenberry, there are some 40,000 shrimp hatcheries worldwide. In addition, there are about 2,000 major fish farms in the world and several thousand other small fisheries that might also purchase the treatment. For example, just in Norway's there are some 800 salmon farms and the main concentrations of British trout production are in Scotland, Wessex and the South of England, with smaller but significant industries also found in Northern Ireland, Wales, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire . The map on the right shows just the locations of British Trout Association
- This would create for a potential customer base of nearly 50,000 hatcheries and farms worldwide.
- If these hatcheries/farms would spend on average only $10,000 per year on such a solution, the global market size would then be $500 million. However, if the average spend on such a product were double, or even triple that, the annual market would be $1 to $1.5 billion.
However, since a conservative approach was adopted for this study, it is estimated that the potential market is at the range of $0.5 billion to $1 billion annually. It is therefore no surprise that the $60 billion aquaculture market is forecasted to have technological change that will focus on nutritional regimes and disease control .
Mr. Shalom Zemach – entrepreneur, has vast experience in Aquaculture development and commercializing.
The company finished her incubator period at 01/2006. There is an approval for the 3 year.
Strategic partner.
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