August 18, 2020

Prairie AquaTech commercialises US' first soy-based aquafeed

Prairie AquaTech has started production at its commercial scale soy-based aquaculture feed plant in Volga, South Dakota, said to be the first in the United States, Agweek reported.

The plant produces 30,000 tonnes of fish feed yearly.

"There are none that we know of that are to this scale yet, there's a lot of pilot scale testing going on, but the commercial facilities are not built yet," says Dennis Harstad, Prairie AquaTech manager.

"The product that we use is soybean meal that comes to us at about 47% protein, and we do a microbial fermentation process to it," Harstad explains.

The patented process converts meal into a highly digestible 70% protein feed that replaces fishmeal in various fish diets.

Harstad shares that they arefocussingon feed for aquaculture species that are higher in value and used mostly in restaurants, including trout, salmon and shrimp.

Research for the feed product wasfunded by the South Dakota Soybean Research and Promotion Council. The state's farmers underwrote a three-year project at South Dakota State University to develop a soy-based aquaculture feed. Prairie AquaTech then licensed this from the university to take to commercialisation.

"For the 30,000 tonnes that we currently operate we will utilise about 2.5 million bushels of soybeans," Harstad says.

According to Harstad, the high quality of South Dakota soybeans makes them a superior aquaculture feed. Specifically, he says that South Dakota soybeans are higher in essential amino acids.

Prairie AquaTech expects to export 75% of its product. However, the COVID-19 pandemic reduced demand for aquaculture feed and impacted sales.

Nonetheless, the company has received requests from aquaculture companies, mostly in Europe, and is studying the possibility of doubling plant capacity, which would raise soybean use at its plant to 8 million bushels per year.

"My goal for this facility in Volga is in five years I would like to see us be a 100,000-tonne facility," Harstad says.