NEWS 62 Alternative Proteins Magazine October 2024 Global shrimp farmers face challenges with soaring costs and rampaging diseases that diminish their profits. Finnish biotech startup Enifer published a new study conducted by independent study partner AquaBioTech Group, at its aquaculture R&D facility, Innovia, about the health benefits of using Enifer’s PEKILO®Aqua mycoprotein in shrimp feed. The company unveiled that the results were excellent, with shrimp living longer and healthier when fed with PEKILO®Aqua. Currently, shrimp get roughly 10% of their protein from a fishmeal diet. Fishmeal, derived from marine fish, has been a staple in shrimp diets due to its rich protein content. Additionally, fishmeal contributes to the overall palatability of the diet. However, almost 90 percent of global marine fish stocks are now fully exploited or overfished, and the shrimp feed industry is the largest single user of fishmeal. According to the statement of Enifer, the study found that the overall mortality rate was notably reduced in shrimp fed the PEKILO®Aqua diet. The survival rate increased from 74% to 85% among shrimp consuming the 30% PEKILO®Aqua diet. Additionally, following carcass analysis, it was observed that the crude protein content was significantly higher (2.5%) in the PEKILO®Aqua-fed group compared to those fed diets containing higher levels of fishmeal. New study: Shrimp fed with fungi protein grow faster and healthier Meatly unveils new protein-free culture medium Agronomics, a company with a focus on the field of cellular agriculture, announced that its portfolio company Good Dog Food Limited trading as Meatly has achieved a significant milestone in developing a protein-free culture medium, costing only one pound per litre. Culture medium is an essential element in the production of cultivated meat, providing cells with the nutrients required for in vitro viability and proliferation. Although animal cell culture is routinely performed in academic labs, creating the amount of biomass required for commercial scale and price points demands significant cost reductions and innovations for the replacement of certain medium components such as fetal bovine serum and albumin. Medium costs account for a significant portion of the costs of producing cultivated meat and reducing them is a well-known hurdle the industry faces as it looks to scale up and achieve price parity with conventional meat products, Agronomics unveiled. Agronomics' team observed that medium prices vary substantially between companies and in some cases are still at levels exceeding hundreds of pounds per litre, making industrial production economically unviable. However, Agronomics explained that Meatly's new medium contains no serum, animal-derived components, steroids, hormones, growth factors, or antibiotics, and is used in their suspension culture bioreactors without micro-carriers. The absence of these expensive proteins, such as transferrin and insulin, as well as growth factors and micro-carriers, means the production of Meatly's protein-free culture medium at an industrial scale is economically viable - at the price of one pound a litre. Meatly believes further cost reduction will be possible when higher volumes of the medium are purchased. Read more>>
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