Aiming to close the waste loop in aquaculture supply chains, Goterra and Skretting Australia have signed a collaboration that includes incorporating insect meal into aquafeeds.
Skretting Australia, the Australian arm of Nutreco’s aquaculture division, and Goterra, a multi-award-winning Australian climate tech start-up, have announced a new partnership to include Australian insect meal in aquaculture feeds. This collaboration will drive the upscaling of key technologies required to mitigate food waste impacts, while contributing to the sustainable production of Australian farmed seafood. According to the companies, this is a win-win for the country’s food system.
With a mission to mitigate food waste by transforming it into alternative proteins and sustainable fertilisers, Goterra is helping to combat climate change along the way.
A key part of the Australian aquaculture industry since the 1990s, Skretting Australia has been at the forefront of driving feed innovation and sustainability in the Australian market across these 30 plus years. The company has shown considerable commitment to the development and validation of new novel ingredients in recent years.
Both the global and local aquaculture industries are large and growing; it is essential for the global industry to support the development of novel ingredients, such as insect meals, to commercial scale. According to the companies, the local validation of insect meals marks the beginning of a new chapter of circularity for Australian aquaculture. Because, without the development and validation of new raw materials, aquaculture simply cannot grow in line with forecast demand.
Skretting Australia is working with Goterra to explore opportunities to validate this material in local aquaculture species.
“We are very proud to work with Goterra to unlock this new local protein source to help scale up this emerging technology. Our desktop analysis shows that Goterra’s insect meals have great potential to be used as a source of protein in our aquafeeds,” says Rhys Hauler, Marketing Manager at Skretting Australia. “We are constantly looking for new low-cost, low-footprint ingredients to increase our raw material flexibility; Goterra insect meals offer the potential to deliver on both of these fronts. We see these materials as not only safe and sustainable, but also of a quality that protects the end product, maintaining the nutritional benefits consumers have come to expect from high quality seafood.”
Olympia Yarger, CEO and founder of Goterra, expresses, “These are the partnerships that stabilise the foundation of a circular economy. Global business with regional inputs ensure stability of production, sustainability of inputs and ensure that Australian agriculture continues to deliver high quality produce with feed produced right here in Australia. I could not be more proud to embark on this next stage of our journey”.
Yarger referenced the alarming food production shortfall figures, forecasted to be 20% by 2050, highlighting the urgent need for food / feed producers to follow in Skretting’s sustainable footprints and find alternative sources of protein. “Collaborating with our offtake customers like Skretting, contributes towards their ambitious ESG targets whilst also closing the loop of this circular value chain.”
This partnership boosts Goterra’s growth trajectory in Australia, Yarger said. “Circular economies need both clean, source separated inputs as well as long term, economically sustainable, offtake markets. This collaboration realises the circular economy sustainably,” the release stated.
