FeedKind® effects on fish behaviour and immunoregulation (FS159)

Project Outcome:

Alternative protein sources for nutrition are important to reduce the impact of feed production on agricultural land use and to reduce stress on our planet’s resources.  While soy has long been a popular protein alternative for fish meal in animal feed, the cultivation of soybeans for soybean meal is not always environmentally friendly – or healthy.

FeedKind^® protein is a Calysta product that has been developed to meet the growing global demand for alternative protein sources for feed in aquaculture. Calysta’s FeedKind^® is an innovative way of addressing the issue of methane release as it is produced from naturally occurring microorganisms (methanotrophs) that thrive on waste methane.

In the current project we ran a short-term feed trial comparing the growth, behaviour and physiology of Atlantic salmon fed a diet containing 15% FeedKind^® (replacing 50% of the fishmeal) or a control diet, both provided by Calysta. The control diet was the same nutrient content minus the FeedKind^® additive. We found that 50% replacement of fishmeal with FeedKind^® had no negative effects on fish growth or behaviour, including aggression, activity and feeding behaviours. At the end of the four-week trial there were no significant differences in plasma cortisol concentrations between treatments, although there was some evidence that inter-individual variation in stress levels was lower in the FeedKind^® group, a result which is worth exploring further in terms of potential FeedKind^® benefits. In conclusion we identified no problems that would prevent further commercial development.