Durable sinking fish feed with low starch formulations and an example with insect meal as alternative protein

Urs Wüst, Director Product Management Aquafeed & Petfood, Business Unit Nutrition, Bühler AG, Switzerland

Formulations are changing and the level of starch is getting lower as well as the level of fishmeal. Fishmeal is being replaced by other protein sources, such as for example, different kind of gluten, soy bean meal and soy concentrates or peas. Depending on the quality of fishmeal, starch inclusions are varied and the extrusion process has to be adjusted accordingly in order to get the correct cook.

The physical quality requirements remain the same or are even increasing today due to the behavior of the different ingredients in the raw material and the changes in formulation.

The potential of using insect meals in fish feed diets show promising prospects.

Available studies indicate that a partial replacement of fishmeal will occur in the short or medium term.

In an extrusion trial with marine feed we have replaced the fishmeal with insect meal (Hermetia - black soldier fly meal) and show some data and processing conditions for optimal cooking and bulk density.

Urs Wüst is the Director Product Management Aquafeed & Petfood   for the Business Unit Nutrition, Bühler AG, Switzerland.  Until 2014, he was responsible for the market segment Aqua Feed and before for the technology and R&D for the market segments Feed, Petfood and Aquafeed. Mr. Wüst worked for more than ten years in Japan and Korea in sales, engineering and customer service as  Manager Feed Technology & Extrusion Systems at Bühler Japan. Prior to that he was Product Manager Food & Feed for analytical equipment at Büchi Lab-technology Switzerland, responsible for strategy, worldwide sales and development of new equipment. He was also Project Manager Feed & Oil Milling at Bühler Belgium, South Africa and Switzerland and Feed milling engineer at the Swiss Institute of Feed Technology (SFT).