BioMar celebrates 50th birthday at AQUA 2012

BioMar celebrated the big five-oh at AQUA 2012 with a massive cake and news of its collaboration with Lallemand.

Check out the cake:

Irmgard Lorenzen, International Marketing Coordinator, Michal Sterba, Sales Manager of BioMar in the Czech Republic, Gioia Guarracino, International Marketing Coordinator, and Torben Svejgaard, CEO of the BioMar Group before cutting the cake.

Trial results: 
The fish feed manufacturer BioMar and the producer of yeast and bacteria for feed applications Lallemand Animal Nutrition presented at the AQUA 2012 Conference in Prague the results of a long research collaboration aimed at reducing the incidence and levels of deformities in sea bass and sea bream larvae. 

The trial results presented showed that depending on farming conditions from to 20 to 50 % less deformities occurred in fish larvae fed feed, containing the feed additive, Pediococcus acidilactici MA18/5M. This probiotic strain, authorised in the EU for use in certain aquaculture applications and species since 2009, is routinely added to the rearing water in the production of live prey for fish larvae.  However, an addition via dry feed seems to be more efficient in delivering the probiotic bacteria to the gut of the fish larvae. BioMar has since 2009 included Pediococcus acidilactici MA18/5M as part of the INICIO Plus range of starter feeds for salmonids and has developed a special process to add the heat sensitive live bacteria in dry feed.

“We still have to await EU approval before we can apply this knowledge and launch an updated version of our starter and weaning feeds in the LARVIVA range containing this probiotic for use in marine and other species. It has been a long and rigorous process, but good news is expected soon”, says Michel Autin, Technical Director at BioMar West Med.  He continues “I am very optimistic that the approval will be obtained as results from smaller scale laboratory based trials were replicated in larger scale commercial hatcheries with similar or even better effects on deformities”.

The EU-approval of the use of the probiotic strain, Pediococcus acidilactici CNCM MA18/5M, in feed for salmonids obtained in 2009 was based on a well-documented demonstration of the reduction of vertebral deformities in salmonids.  However for this approval to be extended to other species, additional documentation needed to be presented to the EFSA, and this was done last year.

BioMar estimates that the cost of fish deformities to hatcheries in the Mediterranean area amounts to over 20 – 25 million EUR per year.

Michel Autin explains, that the cost estimate relates both to the cost of the fish fry, which have to be discarded due to deformities, and to the cost of the repeated hand sorting process. In addition to this comes the cost of downgrading of additional fish when they have reached commercial sizes, if the deformities are not detected at that earlier stage.

The estimated annual production of sea bass and sea bream fry in the Mediterranean is around 900 million. Up to 20 % of the production is today discarded at 0.5 to 2g due to deformities. 

“With a cost price of around 20 Cents per fry even a minor reduction in the number of deformities will mean an enormous economic saving in the hatcheries and a reduced workload”, says Michel Autin, who also attributes improved fish welfare as an additional benefit of using larval feed containing Pediococcus acidilactici CNCM MA18/5M.

The BioMar Group is a major producer of high performance fish feed. With production in three Mediterranean countries it has a leading position in feed to sea bass and sea bream.

Lallemand Animal Nutrition is a part of the Lallemand Group – a leading producer of yeast and bacteria for feed applications.

Michel Autin (left), Technical Director for BioMar West Med with Mathieu Castex, Product Manager at Lallemand SAS at the AQUA 2012 in Prague