“Our global population is growing and developing nations are increasing the demand for animal protein. Therefore, it is absolutely critical for us to make animal protein production as efficient and sustainable as possible, and direct people towards aquaculture, which is the most efficient type of animal protein production. Ensuring healthy aquatic protein with minimal environmental impact must be a key societal priority,” explains Mark Luecke, CEO of Innovation Partners and Houdek, “and that is where we stand out.”
Although some plants – such as soybeans – can provide many of the key amino acids that are found in the fishmeal that’s a traditional part of many aquafeed diets, billions of years of evolution have enabled them to create anti-nutritional factors as an effective defence strategy against predation. This has significantly reduced digestibility and negatively impacts species growth once ingested.
However, Houdek has developed a patented process of fermentation using a food-grade microbe to reduce anti-nutritional factors and increase the availability of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus contained in soybean meal, to make a high protein feed ingredient called ME-PRO.
“We’ve invested a lot of time and resources to ensure the palatability and digestibility of ME-PRO exceeds industry standards. We have managed to exceed 90 percent nitrogen and phosphorus availability, which not only supports the animal but also supports the environment and producer profitability. As fermentation scaled up and more testing was done in more species, we have learned of a number of pre- and post-biotic benefits, supporting animal welfare,” says Luecke.
