Research & development objectives

The overall goals for Research & Development are to achieve:

• Improved product performance
  

  BioMar constantly seeks to improve the economics of fish farming by improving product performance. Feed costs often account for 50-60 % of the production cost of fish, which is why feed performance is a major competitive parameter for BioMar.  
  

• Improved growth ratio and feed conversion ratio
  

  Main performance criterias targetted are growth and feed conversion. The feed conversion ratio, defined as the amount of feed needed to produce a kilo of fish, is also a major aspect of feed performance in relation to environmental issues, e.g. sustainability.

• Recipe optimisation
  

  Recipe optimisation is closely related to product performance, as it can improve performance in relation to raw material costs. The ambition is to meet the nutrition requirement in the most cost effective way. As around 80 % of the feed price stems from raw material costs, recipe optimisation plays a major role in achieving the most cost-effective raw material composition. Testing and implementation of new raw materials are therefore vital aspects of feed development.

• Sustainability
  

  Sustainable raw material sources are a corner stone for the development of Aquaculture. Only raw materials which can be demonstrated to come from sustainable sources or raw materials which has a clear and defined ambition to be certified as sustainable will be used in Biomar. BioMar's development programme on sustainability, BioSustain, includes an evaluation on all raw materials.

While the above mentioned themes sets the overall objectives, a number of different themes are also included in BioMar's research and development programmes, as each of them play an important role in making it possible to develop the aquaculture business.

Fish health is one of the keys to fish growth and survival, and thereby the economic result for fish farmers. It is therefore an integral part of all research and development programmes at BioMar.

Another very important theme in the BioMar Research & Development programmes is harvest quality of fish, in terms of flesh structure, taste, and nutritional value in human consumption. This has lead to several ground breaking feed novelties.

Feeding strategies in order to cater for different fish species nutritional needs in the different stages of life cycle are also important parts of our feed development work.

Special research programmes focus on the development of feeds for new farmed fish species and important fish feed novelties steadily coming up.

Finally physical quality in terms of crumble, oil retention, and sinking speed as well as environmental performance are other aspects, which are essential in the research and development process.