At the recent Asia Pacific Aquaculture 2017 (APA) exhibition in Malaysia, Nutriad sponsored the scientific session entitled “Functional Feeds for Disease Prevention.” At this session, chaired by Dr. Peter Coutteau and Prof. Dr. Rossita Shapawisurely, speakers from the industry as well as the academic sector discussed topics related to functional feed additives to prevent fish and shrimp diseases, health management and farm practices in Thailand, and more.

The Animal Nutrition business line of Evonik will participate in the cooperative research project "Water Footprint for Companies - Local Measures in Global Value Chains" (WELLE). The aim is to expand life cycle assessments of products and processes by the aspects of water consumption and local water scarcity. "In addition to climate change, water is expected to become one of the most dominant ecological issues in the coming years. We are glad that this methodology development in the area of assessing water footprint is now being pushed forward. As a basis for making responsible future business decisions, reliable facts are essential."

INVE Aquaculture Holding has successfully renewed its sales and marketing agreement with the Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp Cooperative, Inc. Under this long-term agreement, the Benchmark group maintains its rights to distribute a substantial share of the GSL COOP's harvest of artemia from the Great Salt Lake, Utah. Alongside continuation of the sales and marketing agreement, INVE has entered into a similarly long-term distribution agreement with the GSL COOP for INVE's current and future artemia-related products and technologies.  INVE is developing a range of breakthrough artemia-related feed products, which are on track to be launched in early 2020. 

In their latest quarterly aquaculture newsletter, Alltech\'s chief innovations officer, Aiden Connolly identified eight digital technologies that are disrupting aquaculture. Among them are robots, drones, and sensors for smarter, more sustainable aquaculture. One of the more interesting technologies is that of eFishery, which uses sensors to detect the hunger level of the fish and feed them accordingly. It can be used in any size farm and can reduce feed costs by up to 21 percent.

Calysta, Inc. has announced the results of a recent feed trial which found that shrimp fed a diet including FeedKind® protein had equivalent or higher survival and growth when compared to shrimp fed a standard fishmeal-based diet. "This trial demonstrates FeedKind’s potential to improve the diets in some of the world’s most challenging aquaculture species. These results show that FeedKind protein can significantly improve current aquaculture feeds, producing comparable or better results while reducing the overall environmental footprint and improving traceability and quality control in the supply chain.”

Angel Yeast has announced their Russia plant is now operational and manufacturing Active Dry Yeast, with an expected annual output of 20 thousand tonnes. The Russia plant project began in September 2015 and was completed in 2 years for an investment of over 600 million RMB.

Gael Force Group announced that they have secured an order to build and supply Marine Harvest Scotland with a series of SeaMate 400T concrete feed barges complete with state-of-the-art SeaFeed Offshore Feeding System. "We are now building our 80th Feed Barge for the industry, and have been proud to supply all of the main Scottish Salmon producers including many previous barges for Marine Harvest. As a direct consequence of the success of Scottish Salmon we have created many new jobs this year and will continue to recruit on the back of this order."

Scottish aquaculture equipment supplier Gael Force has announced that they will officially launch SeaFeed, the company’s first offshore feeding system, at the Aqua-Nor conference later this month in Norway. “Each element of the system has been carefully selected to reduce feed waste, save energy, minimize maintenance and ensure that it has operator and barge safety at its heart. The new tried and tested blower is innovative, very compact, and has a low noise output.”

Held every two years, the upcoming Biomin Asia Nutrition Forum will assemble hundreds of experts, researchers and academics from the food and feed industries around the world to address the latest challenges in the animal health and nutrition arena in Asia. ‘Driving the Asian Protein Economy’ will be the theme of this year’s forum, which will take place in five cities: Dhaka, Delhi, Taipei, Wuxi, and Tokyo, from October 22 to November 1, 2017.

Evonik received the Singapore Sustainable Business Award 2017 in the categories of “Energy Management”, “Best Newcomer” and “Business Responsibility and Ethics – Special Recognition” for the first time. "We are delighted to receive this award, it is in recognition of the company’s outstanding success in incorporating social and environmental aspects into our corporate strategy and business processes."

Ottevanger Milling Engineers has updated their company website. Visitors to the new website can easily find brochures and factsheets for almost all Ottevanger solutions. The new website also features a live online chat option to answer any questions. 

KnipBio Inc. has announced the successful completion of the latest phase in its plan to produce KnipBio Meal. \"The primary goal for our scale-up program was to advance our process technology from a laboratory-scale research project to pilot-size vessel production. Additionally, we wanted to transition from a batch process to semi-continuous fermentation and to demonstrate the viability of methanol as a feedstock to compliment our previous work with ethanol. Our collaboration with the scientists and engineers at the NRC helped us successfully achieve these goals.\"

Nutriad has announced its sponsorship of three major events in the coming months: Asian Pacific Aquaculture (APA) 2017, The Aquaculture Roundtable Series (TARS) 2017 and Diseases in Asian Aquaculture (DAA). “Our sponsorships focus on supporting the aquaculture sector in general, and more specifically South East Asia, to help producers deal with the key challenge of reducing the impact of diseases and parasites on productivity.”

Biomin has relaunched the website mycotoxins.info, featuring updated content and a new look and feel. The website offers a comprehensive yet concise overview on mycotoxins, their main characteristics, occurrence and regulation worldwide. The website is an instructive and interactive tool with the only aim to provide unbiased scientific information on a range of mycotoxin-related topics.

Evonik and DSM are partnering on fermentative production of omega-3 fatty acids from natural microalgae. The process produces an algal oil containing EPA and DHA in a concentration of about 50 percent. The liquid product form is perfectly suited to the production processes of feed manufacturers, who in the future can spray the algal oil onto the feed pellets at the end of the process.

Nutriad has hired Chuck Middleton and Kevin Stephens as sales managers for their US organization. “At Nutriad we are dedicated to building our sales team with top industry talent for providing best in class service to our valued customers. Our new hires confirm that commitment and we are excited to have them as Nutriad team members.”

Norel has opened a Norel Brasil in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Jorge Calil will be responsible for setting up the company and introducing Norel products into the Brazilian market. This new branch will bring the opportunity to service directly Norel core products such as butyrates, medium chain fatty acid salts, organic minerals, flavors, and preservatives

Bühler Insect Technology will build its first industrial plant to process black solider flies for animal nutrition together with its partner Protix in the Netherlands. Bühler will deliver the technology, equipment, and process know how for the rearing and processing of the insects and the feedstock preparation. Start of operation is planned for the first half of 2018. “With this first industrial insect protein production plant we will make an important step towards a more sustainable global food and feed value chain."

Evonik is launching a new software tool AMINOTilapia® to improve efficiency in tilapia farming through optimal feed formulation. AMINOTilapia® calculates the ideal amino acid recommendations for different growth stages of tilapia considering various production features. The software helps nutritionists to formulate diets that optimally meet the animals’ needs and improve feed conversion rate.

During the recent mission to conduct soy workshops in Bangladesh, USSEC consultants performed field visits to meet aqua customers to assess the level of technology and feed quality being used by the industry. A second objective was to share with and educate customers on the latest technologies and developments in aquaculture. Bangladesh is the fifth largest aquaculture-producing nation in the world and is also a significant importer of U.S soybeans, which it crushes in-country.