The missing link for fish meal substitution: low-cost, high-volume, sustainable protein and EPA-rich microalgae (spirulina) biomass

Miguel Cizin, President, Biomat

The debate over sustainability of fish feed ingredients such as fish meal, which is mostly sourced from unsustainable pelagic fish wild catch,  has promoted the development of sustainable vegetable-sourced protein alternatives as a viable substitute.  In addition to other aquatic and non-aquatic ingredients, such as soy, microalgae biomass in general, and spirulina algae in particular, has been identified and acknowledged as the most promising ingredient for high-volume, sustainable protein, due to its unique ability to capture CO2 and available energy and very efficiently convert both into protein and nutrient-rich (EPA) biomass.  There is a long-standing and still very strong global consensus that the single missing link for algae to fulfill its promise as the optimal ingredient to substitute a high percent of fish meal in animal feed is the availability of scalable, competitively priced algae biomass produced in a sustainable process, using a limited amount of non-fertile land, water, nutrients, and energy. A new, patent-pending, sustainable algae biomass production technology is described, which can be deployed on non-fertile land, and which does not require a nearby smokestack as it captures the large amount of carbon molecules required directly from the available CO2 in the surrounding atmosphere.  Typical production volumes per unit surface and overall production costs per ton of algae biomass produced in the first facility deployed in Israel will be presented.