Healthy benefits from the sea for fish and farm

Galway-based Ocean Harvest Technology won the agri-food category in this year's Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation Awards for its novel range of patented seaweed based animal feed formulas centred on the bioactive ingredients present in different seaweeds. These ingredients allow for the replacement of many of the synthetic components currently found in agricultural and aquacultural feed ingredients, with consequent benefits for the fish and consumers.

The company took the award for its Oceanfeed Salmon patented feed additive which is formulated from seaweed and improves the health of farmed salmon by aiding it to repel sea lice. It also improves the taste and texture profile of the fish and raises its Omega 3 fatty acid levels by up to 30 per cent.

According to company founder Dr Stefan Kraan, the salmon feed was based on the discovery of a blend of micro algae that could help speed up the process in the fish's liver which is involved in the production of Omega 3. This is added to the standard fish feed to deliver the superior health and taste properties.

“This is a win-win for consumer and fish producers”, says Kraan. “The consumer benefits through the healthy properties of the fish and the processors and farmers benefit as they can get a better price for their produce.”

Aquaculture is by no means the only market of interest to the company. Since winning the award, significant progress has been made in several other important areas. “Oceanfeed Salmon is now up and running and doing very well for us”, says Kraan. “We supply some major customers in Ireland have just signed an agreement with one of the largest firms in Norway. We are now up to capacity in the salmon market.”

Having succeeded with salmon, the company moved on to shrimp. “We have done trials in a number of countries and are getting a good feed to weight gain return,” he says. “There is also a health gain which we didn’t foresee.”

This health gain is connected to a particular disease which can infect entire populations of farmed shrimp causing them to die on or about the 52nd day of their lives. It has been found that the survival rate for shrimp fed with the Oceanfeed product rises to 40 per cent from near zero. “This could have huge implications for the farmers and we hope to confirm it in further trials. Our product also delivers a better colour and weight to the shrimp.”

The focus then turned to the agriculture sector. “We thought that if our products were working so well in the aquaculture sector, why don’t we look at agriculture?” Kraan recalls. “The first area we looked at was pigs and we did a trial in a pig farm in Tipperary. That was a 600-pig unit and they added our product to the feed of 300 of them and looked for differences over a period.”

The differences were slight but positive. However, that unit had quite a small number of pigs by industry standards and it was decided to look for a more representative trial. “We worked with a 10,000-pig unit in Canada and the results were very encouraging. The farmer found that they were able to remove two of the antibiotics they routinely used and they were also able to dispense with one of the growth hormones they were using. Growth hormones are still legal to feed to animals in the US and Canada. This has major implications for costs as well as health as it will help reduce the incidence of antibiotic resistant infections.”

The results in terms of antibiotic reduction were replicated in trials in the Netherlands and Germany and the company has now embarked on a further large-scale trial in the US. "We are working with a farmer in Missouri who supplies into the Heritage chain which sells high-quality natural products to its customers. This trial could be very important. We have also moved into Asia where half the world's pigs are produced. We hope to be able to move into commercial production once the trials are complete."

The next move for the company was into horses. This is a small but high value market. “Our feed is used for JP McManus’s horses,” says Kraan. “You can see the effect of it on the horse’s coat in just two weeks. The improvement is marked. Also, it works against worms and improves the horse’s health.”

The company’s latest product innovation was introduced at the Ploughing Championships last week. Oceanfeed Bovine has been designed specifically for cattle and came about almost by accident.

"A neighbour here in Milltown, Co Galway, suggested it to us. We tried it out with one neighbouring dairy farmer with 10 cows on it and 10 off it. Within three weeks, there was a marked increase in the protein levels in the milk and within a year there was a very significant increase in the fertility of the herd."

The numbers stack up for the farmers as well. For an investment of 13.4 cent a day for each cow in additional feed, the farmer gets back an average of 56 cents a day – a fourfold return. “The performance for beef cattle is even better,” Kraan adds. “The return on investment is about 14 times and the value of the animal increased by almost €100.”

The company will continue innovating and looking for new applications for its product range. “We are working with different seaweeds to see what works best for different animals. In some cases there is no real difference, in others it is very significant. We have never seen a negative effect.

“We will also look at human nutrition applications,” he adds, “as that is a much higher-value added market than the animal and fish-feed sectors.”