by
Bryan P Tracy PhD, White Dog Labs, USA
The concept of using single cell organisms (bacteria, yeast, fungus and algae) as a protein source was developed during the cold war for space travel. Today, UK’s Quorn Foods sells over US $250M of beef and chicken substitute, which utilises protein from fungus grown in large fermenters.
But could Single Cell Protein (SCP) become an alternative protein for fishmeal?
Creating an alternative for fishmeal has turned out to be quite a challenge. Vegetable protein is cost effective and scalable, but does not have the essential amino acid content, to match the quality of fishmeal. As early as twenty years ago, Norferm, a Statoil and DuPont Joint Venture, has produced high quality SCP for aquaculture.
The company leveraged excess natural gas in the North Sea, as feedstock for methanotropic bacteria, that utilises methane as the energy and a carbon source in fermentation. The project was abandoned in 2006, due to high capital and operating cost, as well as lack of production worthiness – problems which still face recent attempts to revive the technology.
A large number of algae start-ups, a decade ago, planned to leverage the sun and CO2 to produce a high-quality protein. However, open ponds proved to be susceptible to contamination, while closed systems had high operating costs. Today, there is a flurry of start-ups leveraging municipal waste to produce insect protein. While the product quality is good, it is way too early in the technology cycle to determine ultimate cost and ease of scalability.
Based in the Netherlands, Rabobank is an international financial service provider, operating on the basis of cooperative principles. Yet, with all these issues, Rabobank’s Senior Seafood Analyst, Gorjan Nikolik, predicts that “novel feed ingredients will boost marketability of farmed fish and can reduce the cost of production.”
White Dog Labs (WDL) is working very hard to prove Gorjan Nikolik right!
Read more HERE.
The concept of using single cell organisms (bacteria, yeast, fungus and algae) as a protein source was developed during the cold war for space travel. Today, UK’s Quorn Foods sells over US $250M of beef and chicken substitute, which utilises protein from fungus grown in large fermenters.
But could Single Cell Protein (SCP) become an alternative protein for fishmeal?
Creating an alternative for fishmeal has turned out to be quite a challenge. Vegetable protein is cost effective and scalable, but does not have the essential amino acid content, to match the quality of fishmeal. As early as twenty years ago, Norferm, a Statoil and DuPont Joint Venture, has produced high quality SCP for aquaculture.
The company leveraged excess natural gas in the North Sea, as feedstock for methanotropic bacteria, that utilises methane as the energy and a carbon source in fermentation. The project was abandoned in 2006, due to high capital and operating cost, as well as lack of production worthiness – problems which still face recent attempts to revive the technology.
A large number of algae start-ups, a decade ago, planned to leverage the sun and CO2 to produce a high-quality protein. However, open ponds proved to be susceptible to contamination, while closed systems had high operating costs. Today, there is a flurry of start-ups leveraging municipal waste to produce insect protein. While the product quality is good, it is way too early in the technology cycle to determine ultimate cost and ease of scalability.
Based in the Netherlands, Rabobank is an international financial service provider, operating on the basis of cooperative principles. Yet, with all these issues, Rabobank’s Senior Seafood Analyst, Gorjan Nikolik, predicts that “novel feed ingredients will boost marketability of farmed fish and can reduce the cost of production.”
White Dog Labs (WDL) is working very hard to prove Gorjan Nikolik right!
Read more HERE.
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