For many decades, the research and development community has provided substantial results and ground-breaking novelty to deliver on this goal. Yet, in these difficult times, where the world experiences one crisis after the other, trust in applied science is more important than ever as it pays off to be on the forefront.

The global aquaculture industry is going through extremely difficult times. The COVID-19 crisis started a circle of unexpected and undesired incident. This was followed by extreme price increases on raw materials and energy, as well as a lack of availability of key raw materials. On top, a war on European grounds and its consequences are giving us all very difficult times.

While the current situation of the world gives business-critical difficulties to all of us, we should be aware of what science and innovation have delivered over the past decades. Years of hard work and experience have brought a tremendous amount of knowledge on fish nutrition, feed formulation, and on raw materials to cover the nutritional needs of the species to feed. In the light of this knowledge and experience, we have developed feed concept tools and systems that contribute to minimize the damage that may arise to fish farming operations and get us through these difficult times.

Tailoring the performance of your feeds

When BioMar created the Performance Concept it was pioneering the industry. This concept has dramatically changed the way aquafeeds are formulated. According to the Performance Concept, a targeted level of fish performance is achieved by optimising the feed according to nutrient requirements of the fish. Moreover, formulation is no longer based on crude protein and fat but on fixed digestible protein and digestible energy levels, as this is what the fish can actually utilise. This allows product developers to switch between a larger variety of raw materials to secure a stable performance at the best price. This way, they can avoid being stuck with overly expensive protein and energy sources. In addition, focusing on digestible nutrients – and thus nutrients available to the fish - guarantees stable performance while formulating on crude nutrient values do not allow the same stability.

Decades ago, when the Performance Concept was introduced, the industry faced another raw materials crisis with highly fluctuating raw materials prices, and the Performance Concept became a substantial tool to face the crisis. This feed formulation concept is still successfully used formulating our feeds around the world.