Algal biomass as a substitute/replacement for fish meal? Presented by Stephen G. Newman Ph.D. There has been an extraordinary amount of scientific attention being paid to the generation of fossil fuel alternatives and the focus on the role of algae as a possible source of oils that can be used directly or cracked into fuels for internal combustion engines over the last few years. Some of the companies that are at the leading edge are thinking about what to do with the spent biomass. Nutritionally some of it is quite similar in amino acid composition to fish meals and is highly digestible. With a little tweaking in some cases and as is in others, algae meals offer the promise of being great substitutes for fish meal. The quantities of fish meal harvested annually from capture fisheries have remained fairly constant over the last several decades. The rapid growth of aquaculture coupled with the demand for protein dietary components has driven the price of fish meal up to the point where many companies are being forced to consider the role of plants such as soybean meal as partial replacements for fish meal. Algal meals are a natural extension of this. The challenge will be to find the right algal strains, culture them under the right conditions, make money off the primary metabolites of interest and then develop a consistent supply of a high quality protein that can be used in aquaculture. The size and nature of the market and some ideas about what this material will have to cost and its nutritional composition will be the subject of this seminar. |