New industry collaboration a potential game-changer in the salmon market

Salmon company Lerøy, feed producer BioMar, and specialty ingredients company TerraVia announced collaboration on Tuesday, 25 April at Seafood Expo Global that is set to enhance the sustainability and omega-3 profile of farmed salmon.

Following successful full life-cycle tests, Lerøy is about to start feeding its one-kilogram and larger salmon with a new feed formulated with AlgaPrime, a sustainable, DHA omega-3 rich whole algae ingredient developed by TerraVia in partnership with Bunge.

“We know that future stocks of fishmeal will be limited, and the search for alternatives has been ongoing for a long time. With our new partnership, we will be able to maintain high levels of omega-3 in our salmon, which is of benefit to consumers,” Lerøy CEO Henning Beltestad said.

According to Graham Ellis, the senior vice president of business development for TerraVia, AlgaPrime is created from a natural algae that is fermented, then fed with local sugar cane at the company’s facility in Brazil. The resulting product is dried before incorporation into a base feed pellet produced by BioMar.

BioMar vice president and head of its salmon division, Jan Sverre Røsstad said at the press conference on the floor of the expo that he’s pleased that the new product will help to maintain the company’s position as a pacesetter in the feed business.

“It is evident to us that cooperation is needed to develop the salmon industry, and our close collaboration with Lerøy and TerraVia is a valuable way to innovate in aquaculture,” he said.

Beltestad is happy with the new feed, which he said is producing healthy salmon and contributing to the sustainable of fish stocks. 

“Fish oil is still a constituent part of our feed, but research is ongoing to reduce the amount we use, and we can already produce salmon using 100 percent replacement oils if required,” said Beltestad.

In Norway, Lerøy has pioneered customer-facing traceability on packs of salmon. The company’s GLADLAKS initiative enables consumers to type a code from the pack into the gladlaks.no website to receive full details about the fish. These include the date the salmon was hatched, the location of sites in which it was grown, the type of feed used, even treatments for sea lice it may have received.

“We provide a lot of information, which consumers seem to appreciate, and the website is well used,” said Belestad. “It’s all part of leading the pack on innovation.”