OMEGA, a new line of fish feed products aiming at work on fish fillet characteristics, namely on HUFA omega-3 levels, was launched by Aquasoja. OMEGA products contain selected fish oil as the lipid added source, increasing intake of marine ingredients during fish life cycle, with later effect on fillet lipidic profile. “The need for a better ratio ω3/ω6 in humans’ diet is quite an actual topic that deserves the best of our attention,” the company said.
Functional feeds are diets designed to address certain issues rather than species nutritional requirements only. Attributing functionality to fish feeds means working with ingredients and/or additives to solve or prevent problems, but never losing the focus on growth. In this sense, Aquasoja invested for many years now on good knowledge of ingredients (macro and micro) oriented to improve fish health and product final quality. Based on a strong R&D investment over the years, the company has a set of functional feeds in its product portfolio that can be divided into two distinct lines depending on the desired goal: prophylaxis/health and added value on sale.
With aquaculture production increasing and raising competition between fish farms to sell identical fish products, diversification is one of the keys to success and higher incomes. Product diversification may include, among others, big-size fish, alternative species, organic production, enhanced visual appearance or fillet intrinsic characteristics. With this in mind, Aquasoja started some years ago to develop research on functional feeds aiming to add value to the sale of fish products.
CROMA was the first one. Officially launched in 2018, CROMA is a functional feed targeted to enhance the natural skin colors of seabream. Once final consumers prefer to buy colorful seabream rather than greyish ones, CROMA’s goal is to approach farmed seabream appearance to wild specimens, enabling the fish farmer to add value on sale. In 2020, the company is launching OMEGA. In order to maximize the content of polyunsaturated long-chain fatty acids (n-3 PUFA) in the fillet and the ratio n-3/n-6, the company suggests using the OMEGA products throughout the whole ongrowing cycle and not only in the final stage of production prior to slaughter.
