22 March 2021- The landscape of aquaculture nutritional products is ever-evolving as appetite for seafood increases globally. With sustainability trends meaning a shift to fishmeal alternatives and perpetual production issues like disease outbreaks requiring technical responses, a new wave of solutions for aquaculture producers have emerged to address these challenges.
To reflect the needs of their customers around the world, Phileo have invested heavily in this area of their business. From just three aquaculture products available five years ago they have developed a comprehensive product portfolio of 15 products that they are marketing globally. Feedinfo spoke to Phileo's Otavio Serino Castro, Global Species Manager for Aquaculture and Lin Sheng, China Aquaculture Business Manager, to understand how and why they grew their portfolio and some of the key trends in aquaculture production that are reflected in their range.
[Feedinfo] Can you tell us about the evolution of your aquaculture portfolio over the past 5 years?
[Otavio Serino Castro] The portfolio has grown and developed a lot. Five years ago Phileo’s aquaculture strategy was based on 3 key products (Safmannan®, Selsaf® and Nutrisaf®). We concentrated activities on immunity enhancement and disease prevention, dedicating efforts to tackle bacterial challenges caused by Streptococcus agalactiae in tilapia, and EMS/AHPND (early mortality syndrome; acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease) caused by Vibrio parahaemolyticus in shrimp.
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Following our investment into the US-based bacterial probiotic producer Envera in 2017 and with the increasing demands for solutions to improve fishmeal-reduced diets and gut health, we decided to conduct a GAP analysis. This allowed us to redefine our strategy to expand our portfolio in alignment with the new industry needs and demands. Since then we have been investing in new segments such as functional proteins, yeast, bacteria probiotics and purified fractions to improve immunity. By the end of 2021 we expect to launch a range of products including probiotics for the aquaculture market, a new purified high Beta-glucan fraction called Safglucan® for fish vaccination and immunity enhancement and Prosaf® in the finfish market, which is a high protein yeast extract used to improve performance of reduced fishmeal diets. With the complete portfolio, we will have 15 validated products available for the aquaculture segment which is more than ever before. |
Otavio Serino Castro |
[Feedinfo] How have you been able to broaden your product portfolio so rapidly while ensuring the efficacy of your products?
[Otavio Serino Castro] Our R&D projects are developed in collaboration with Lesaffre Group’s R&D corporate platforms and research partners all around the globe. Each project is developed by a multidisciplinary team, defined according to the topic of research, including input from our internal technical and industrial experts, customers and commercial team. When we have completed the in vitro screenings, proof of concept trials and product in vivo scientific validation, we conduct a pre-launch phase close to our customers to fine tune the applications in field conditions and establish the best economic recommendations. Today we are proud to say we have trials with more than 15 aquaculture species, and collaboration with more than 35 universities and research institutes.
[Feedinfo] Tell us about the most exciting products in the portfolio and the problems they solve.
[Otavio Serino Castro] A focus for us over the past few years has been primary culture purified yeast extracts. I believe it is a product range with great versatility and plenty of functionalities to explore. We recently launched Prosaf®, designed to be a helping hand to nutritionists on reduced fishmeal diets. The product has great potential to improve diet palatability, amino acid digestibility and feed efficiency. It also has functional compounds such as nucleic acids and low molecular weight peptides with potential bioactivity that can contribute to the antioxidant response and reduce inflammation in the gut. In addition, we are starting to evaluate new Prosaf® applications in starter and high-performing diets as well as RAS (recirculating aquaculture systems) feeds, and exploring potential links to gut health and microbiota modulation with probiotics. In case we need free nucleotides, we also have Nucleosaf®, which can supply natural, free nucleotides for intense stress periods.
The probiotic segment is also very interesting with lots of possibilities. This year we will launch Microsaf®, a feed bacterial probiotic to improve shrimp performance in super-intensive systems and early stages. In parallel we are conducting a screening program with Envera’s strains to select new Bacillus species targeting pathogenic bacteria inhibition. Applying our patented GO Technology® we can improve the germination and performance of spore-forming bacteria in conditions where it usually would have a low germination rate. This technology could be a game changer for some Bacillus strains in specific situations such as water with a high salt content or low temperatures. This will be certainly be an area that we will invest in over the coming years.
[Feedinfo] You mentioned you have created products to support fishmeal replacements. Can you tell us why this is a problem you want to solve and about the products that can offer solutions here?
[Otavio Serino Castro] Phileo initially started to work in fish meal replacement strategies because of the interest of using autolyzed and inactivated yeast as a protein source. At the beginning the main concern was finding cost-effective ingredients to fulfil amino acid nutrition, assuring a good diet digestibility and performance. After a more detailed analysis of the problems linked to reduced fishmeal diets, we decided to approach this challenge in more holistic and systematic way.
When you reduce the fishmeal in an animal’s feed, the impact can be decreased digestibility of amino acids, decreased feed palatability, imbalance of micronutrients such as micro-minerals, nucleotides, fatty acids and the presence of antinutritional factors that can lead to gut inflammation, metabolic disturbances, and immune-health problems. The risks of impairing growth performance or having health issues will depend on the interaction of several of these factors so it is important we address these.
We believe each case demands a customized recommendation of one or more products, adjusted according to the quality and levels of fishmeal in the feed, substitute ingredients profile, species and life stage, field conditions and production system. We can improve the nutritional value, palatability and feed efficiency using Prosaf®, we can support gut health in different ways with Nutrisaf®, Actisaf® and Microsaf®, we can boost immunity, resistance against pathogens and reduce stress with Safglucan®, Safmannan® and Selsaf®. Our approach is not to supply a single fishmeal alternative, but specialized products to improve the chances of using new and alternative ingredients, by mitigating possible risks that can be uncovered in the nutritional feed formula.
[Feedinfo] Can you tell us about your work supporting the development of functional feeds? What do you think your customers looking for in this area?
[Otavio Serino Castro] Initially functional feeds were considered as expensive diets as they were loaded with different additives and sometimes nutritionally supplemented with high levels of vitamins and microminerals. Nowadays, customers have a greater understanding of the science behind some of these concepts, and have accumulated experience working with functional feed additives. They are moving away from emergency “black box” solutions, where you solve problems as they arise, to a more precise and rational utilization of feed additives throughout the production cycle.
We are investing in fine-tuning our product applications for different regions and species and working to evaluate synergies between our own solutions and other products used by our customers. For us the main objective is still mitigating the negative effects of stress and improving health and survival against pathogens to reduce antibiotic utilization. However, we have several projects in grow-out phase where we are successfully improving zootechnical and economic performance with small adjustments. Even with a well-adjusted nutrition plan and an apparent low disease pressure, there is still room to improve results and mitigate the silent losses caused by environmental fluctuations and the presence of stressors.
As an example, we recently finished a commercial trial in Brazil, looking at tilapia from 400g to harvest. We significantly improved weight gain and final body weight, with positive effects in FCR, fillet yield, and reduction of carcass processing condemnation. Adjusting some functionalities with small investments in the final feed, allowed us to reduce the total production cost by 5% and improve margins by more than 25% in a commercial setting.
[Feedinfo] What strategies do you undertake to understand your customers and meet their needs?
[Otavio Serino Castro] The challenges that the aquaculture industry faces are becoming more complex and demanding, so we need to increase our efforts to really identify and understand customer needs. We adopt a straightforward approach where we develop a concise and consistent value proposition to our customers to make it clear where and how our products can help or bring benefits. The development work we are carrying out in China with our team illustrates well how we can switch from transactional relationships to win-win partnerships.
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Lin Sheng |
[Lin Sheng] We stopped focusing on products and prices and started discussing problems, possible solutions, capabilities, and ways to join forces to improve. In 2020 we signed two R&D collaboration agreements with Nutriera and Yuequn Biotech. We were aiming to invest together to validate Prosaf® in largemouth bass diets with reduced fishmeal levels and to develop functional feeds using nucleotides, selenium yeast and b-glucans for largemouth bass and marine fish larvae feeds. Last year, even with all the challenges that arose from the COVID-19 pandemic and market disruptions, we achieved positive results by finalizing trials, publishing scientific articles, and registering growth at around 15% in the aqua segment. For 2021 we have already expanded our aqua team by hiring new staff and we will introduce Safglucan® to the aquaculture market. We are very optimistic and expecting a promising year ahead. |
[Feedinfo] What are the next steps for expanding your product portfolio further?
[Otavio Serino Castro] Our plan is to strengthen our portfolio of probiotic solutions and keep investing in new scientific-driven applications and programs for fish vaccination. We also want to continue to diversify to include species like salmon, pangasius and marine fish, especially with our new products. Two years ago, we initiated a pipeline of probiotic bacteria screening to tackle specific issues from disease management to bioremediation and we’ve been discussing opportunities with key players in the market to develop customized solutions and co-develop products. We are also starting to work on high nucleotides and specific yeast extracts, capitalising on the group’s expertise and industrial capability developing yeast extracts for human consumption.
For the future, we are starting to align the implementation of sustainability and welfare indicators in our R&D projects as a routine. Today we know that our products, especially as they are natural solutions, can bring a lot of benefits to the customers in terms of antibiotic reduction and improved feed efficiency, but we will look to measuring the impact with a more structured approach, using proper methodologies and tools according to their needs. In our innovation platform we are also looking to bring solutions in areas where we currently have no established or efficient solutions and exploring different technologies. We have expanded our aquaculture portfolio so much over the past few years and are looking forward to similar growth moving forward.
Published in association with Phileo by Lesaffre
