BioMar's Blue Impact feeds include alternative ingredients and are designed as an individualized journey for each company.
Photo: BioMar / Akaroa King Salmon.
The sustainability journey of Akaroa King Salmon has taken a major step forward thanks to its partnership with Danish feed producer BioMar and its innovative Blue Impact feed program, which supplements wild-caught fish in their formulations with cultivated algal oil, fish trimmings, and insect meal. A milestone not only for the company but for the entire industry, as it is the first global producer of king salmon to adopt it.
Just at a time when a new study has revealed that aquaculture relies on far more wild fish than previously estimated, this new approach significantly reduces the impact on wild fish stocks while utilizing clean, sustainable sources of Omega-3 to produce the healthiest fish possible.
Akaroa King Salmon is a 100% New Zealand-owned partnership that includes Ngāti Porou, Ōnuku Runanga - the mana moana (guardians) of Akaroa Harbour - and the founding Bates Family. This partnership has a whakawhanaungatanga (relationship) based around intergenerational sustainability, aiming to provide local employment and healthy seafood for today and future generations.
Now, thanks to the partnership with BioMar and the use of these novel ingredients, the company will become a net-positive fish producer, committed to reducing its carbon footprint while incorporating regenerative and circular ingredients into its feed.
Coinciding with this milestone, Duncan Bates, founder and managing partner of Akaroa King Salmon looked back on the trajectory of the industry and the company since they started in 1985.
"When I first started farming salmon in Akaroa Harbour, almost four decades ago, the feed ingredients essentially relied on wild-caught fish as the raw material, and we fed up to 3kg of wild fish to grow 1kg of farmed salmon. Clearly, this wasn’t a sustainable practice," he said.
"With the introduction of Blue Impact, Akaroa King Salmon have started our journey to become a positive fish protein producer, a far cry from those days long ago and a testament to our ongoing aspiration to become a truly sustainable food producer. I am particularly excited to use novel ingredients like insect meal, utilising waste streams previously going to landfill," he added.
Nik Mavromatis, Marketing and Sales Director of Akaroa Salmon, talked along the same lines. "Our customers have high expectations – they want us to continue raising the finest tasting king salmon while also being mindful of the broader environmental impact, without compromising on the health benefits," he said.
"I'm thrilled about the future of aquaculture as we blend our farming expertise with the technical expertise of BioMar around innovative new ingredients like oil from microalgae," Mavromatis continued. Akaroa Salmon already trialled the algal oil, achieving outstanding results with their salmon, which led them to win the Seafood NZ 'Future Adaptation' award in 2023.
"We are excited to partner with Akaroa on their sustainability journey," said for his part Mike Thomson, Commercial Director, BioMar Australia. "Both companies are very ambitious in this area, and I expect we will constantly be pushing one another to achieve important sustainability targets and milestones. This kind of partnership leads to innovative solutions and meaningful sustainability advancements for seafood," he continued.
Thomson said he was not surprised that Akaroa had begun its journey with Blue Impact and added that companies like it - dedicated to sustainability and the use of more circular and regenerative ingredients - are needed to ensure the future of the aquaculture industry.
"Using sustainable novel ingredients is essential for decoupling feed and food supply chains and provides novel ingredient producers the confidence to invest in R&D, upscaling, and commercialisation, increasing the availability of these ingredients industry-wide," he stated.
Blue Impact feeds are designed as an individualized journey for each company that requires continuous improvements in the three BioSustain™ impact metrics: Forage Fish Dependency Ratio (FFDR), percentage of circular and restorative raw materials, and carbon footprint.
As mentioned above, this concept calls for the use of alternative ingredients such as insect meal, regenerative agricultural products, and trimmings from seafood processing, at ascending levels of inclusion in each successive version of the feed.
As also noted, Akaroa is the first king salmon producer to use this customized feed program although not the first salmon company to do so. Previously, BioMar partnered with small Scotland salmon producer Loch Duart in the first use of its Blue Impact feed, specially commissioned for the Scottish company.