ARTICLE Alternative Proteins Magazine April 2024 57 “The transition from fishmeal to insect-based ingredients in aquaculture nutrition represent a huge shift in the industry. The availability of fishmeal has reached its limit and cannot support this rate of overfishing, positively leading to much more sustainable solutions such as BSF meal.” Black Soldier Flies (BSF), a fast-growing industry, has caught the attention of all major aquaculture producers globally, and for a good reason, including BSF meal in many species of fish seems to increase performance and is becoming more available with companies producing at larger scales. NUTRITIONAL PROFILE BSF or Hermetia illucens are bio-accumulators, this means they will absorb and store substances such as amino acids, fatty acids and micronutrients from their feed source. This also implies that they will accumulate pollutants or toxins if present in their feed. The quality and nutritional profile of BSF meal is thus largely based on the rearing substrate. This underlines that the feed intake for the insects will directly affect the nutritional profile of the products fed to fish. At Flylab, we have chosen a naturally complete diet in order to maintain our clients’ quality standards, and have a nutritional profile to fit the needs of the aquaculture industry. CASE STUDIES The performance of BSF meal directly compared to fishmeal has been studied in a number of animal species. We have chosen to analyse 4 species in this article; Pacific White Shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei), Koi Carp (Cyprinus carpio var. koi), Siberian Sturgeon (Acipenser baerii) and Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar). For further information, these studies are available at the end. Performance on Pacific White Shrimp (1): Kasetsart University in Thailand made an experiment designed to assess the effects of partial replacement of fishmeal in Pacific White Shrimp diets. The insects were sourced from Flylab in Thailand. A total of 5 treatments were analysed, gradually replacing fishmeal by BSF meal by up to 60%. Over the course of 8 weeks, the Pacific White Shrimp showed distinct differences in weight, survival rate, feed conversion ratio and even colour. • Average weight gain went from 6.55 to 7.98g, underlining a 22% gain. • Survival rate went from 75.56 to 91.11%, another gain of more than 20%. • Feed conversion ratio went from 1.12 to 1.67, a staggering 49% difference. MAXIMIZING PERFORMANCE, A NECESSARY TRANSITION TO BSF INGREDIENTS Aubin Bernard Entomologist Flylab
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