Skretting’s new fish food research center at Okiwi Bay in New Zealand opens February 2.

Skretting marketing manager Leo Nankervis said to local news while the land-based facility was still in a commissioning phase, it was already operating "to an extent" with experiments due to begin in the coming weeks.

Testing at the site involves giving different types of feed to help find the most efficient and sustainable ways to farm finfish. Up to 40 mature fish are kept in each of the twelve 7,000L research tanks located on site with two full-time staff employed to monitor progress, reports Stuff.

Nankervis said the company was looking forward to helping the NZ salmon industry develop more efficient feeds. Early research and development targets will include validating the use of zero fish meal diets, high energy diets in King Salmon and improving knowledge of the protein requirement of that species.

“We've come a long way with Atlantic Salmon for example and developed some really neat concepts - we hope to transfer some that to King Salmon and learn a lot as an initial direction”, Nankervis reported.

Read full story here.