New algae supplement for aquaculture launched

The product* is a joint effort of TerraVia Inc and Bunge Limited and will be produced at the companies’ SB Renewable Oils joint venture facility in Brazil, where full product scale-up was reached in late 2015. The joint venture partners will act as exclusive distributors for the product. Product sampling to global aquaculture feed producers has taken place over the last several months.

TerraVia and Bunge also announced that they have reached a definitive commercial supply agreement with one of the world’s largest aquaculture feed suppliers. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Under the supply agreement, the new algae product is slated to begin incorporation into fish feed for salmonids in the July-August 2016 time-frame.

“We are offering a non-marine based, sustainable source of omega-3s to help address the growing ‘fish in, fish out’ problem today. It provides a far more sustainable non-fish based source of DHA to help maintain healthy oceans while improving the nutritional value of seafood for our families,” said TerraVia CEO Jonathan Wolfson.

Long chain omega-3s such as DHA and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) are critical inputs used extensively in aquaculture feed, with fish oil and meal as their main sources. Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing food production systems in the world, a market that is estimated to reach $200 billion annually by 2020. This growth is helping to drive increasing demand for long chain omega-3s, particularly as global supplies of the traditional sources, fish oil and meal, are under serious and increasing pressure from overfishing, quotas and rising demand for human and animal nutrition. Products, such as the one described here, provide a sustainable and efficient source of DHA that can be produced at high volumes to address increasing global demand without endangering fish stocks.

*AlgaPrime™