The (South Antarctic) Krill Industry - How far can krill derivatives become a real feed ingredient substitute? - A Brief Industry Overview

Dimitri Sclabos, General Manager, Tharos Ltd. E-mail : dimitri@sclabos.com - dimitrisclabos@tharos.biz

Much has been said about South Antarctic Krill (Euphausia superba, Dana) species products, specifically meals and oils, becoming sustainable, competitively priced aquafeed ingredient replacements for brown fishmeal and fish oils.

Undoubtedly krill meals and oils have unsurpassed nutritional qualities that aquafeeds can and should profit from. Nonetheless, feed manufacturers should count on them as one-more feed component alternative rather than being an entire substitute option.

There are three relevant aspects of this fishery that will preclude South Antarctic Krill derivatives from becoming stable, price-competitive feed ingredients; processing and logistic complexities, owner/processors’ options of alternative higher value-added routes and environmental and regulatory aspects.

Processing complexities abound, no matter how simple it may be seen to process “just another pelagic” species, South Antarctic Krill has not proved to be another “typical pelagic species”. Logistic aspects are also difficult to work with, in relation to the area where it is captured and processed as well as the costs involved for this operation.

For key fishing operators (owners), although feed-grade krill meals and oils are relevant end-product targets, there are also other krill derivatives that may add much more value to the at-sea operation, for example pharma-grade krill oils (phospholipids-rich), food-grade whole frozen krill and white tablecloth food-grade meats.

Environmental and regulatory aspects will and need to be seriously addressed in order to prevent the South Antarctic Krill face the same detrimental fishing effort seen on other species if it wants to become a sustainable and environmental-friendly resource option. The major over fishing risk relies on the South Antarctic Krill species’ being key resource for the entire South Antarctic trophic feed-chain.

For more information and to register for Aquafeed Horizons Asia, visit http://www.aquafeed.info/