In its first year of operation, the Cargill Innovation Center (CIC) in Colaco Chile has supported the launch of several new health feed products, has completed a total of 25 successful trials, and is expanding with a shrimp health facility.
CIC in Colaco is one of the world’s largest research centers of its kind and its main focus is to develop health diets for aquaculture species.
“Locally in Chile we are working with Atlantic salmon however our knowledge and competence is also applied in warm water species such as Tilapia, Shrimp, and Hairy crab,” stated Eva Jakob, scientist and leader of the centers challenge unit. “Furthermore we are focusing on co-infection trials to better understand the complex interaction between the host and the pathogens and also to mimic better the reality of open water conditions. The knowledge we’ll gather from all of our challenge trials will help our businesses to develop better health diets for a sustainable future in aquaculture.”
“One of our key achievements has been documenting the EWOS BACTER diet, which helps fish challenged with bacterial infections like Salmonid Rickettsial Syndrome (SRS),” stated Eva. In Chile, SRS is the main reason for antibiotic use In salmon farming.
Another main focus has been a parasite causing amoebic gill disease (AGD), which is present both in Chile and in other parts of the world.
“We conducted a task together with Catholica University in Santiago, to give us a much better understanding of this parasite. A second task was aimed at developing and validating realistic AGD challenge models, that will enable us to do rapid screening of new feed compounds against AGD,” stated scientist Chris Hawes.
CIC Colaco is also expanding its work focus by integrating a shrimp health facility.
“The installation of the two new rooms for shrimp challenge trials is under construction and the application for importing thewhiteleg shrimp has been successful. Results obtained from future trials here will be used to design new feeds against diseases affecting shrimp like Early Mortality Syndrome (EMS), in coordination with CIC Elk River,” stated Jose Troncoso, Senior Scientist.
Simon Wadsworth, director of CIC Colaco, expressed that safety has remained a key focus with no accidents or incidents since startup. “The facility has given excellent performance and we have been able to deliver a total of 25 successful trials. The documentation developed has allowed us to support the launch of a number of important products for Cargill in Chile and in other parts of the world. These advanced products are now making a positive commercial impact for our customers,” he concluded.
