Wood to Feed Ingredient Maker Arbiom Sees Positive Results in Fish Trials

A US firm has big plans to turn waste from wood processing\r\ninto a sustainable fishmeal alternative and says its initial trials are showing\r\npromising results.

Ricardo Ekmay, vice president of nutrition for Durham, North\r\nCarolina-based Arbiom, told Undercurrent News that his company's\r\n"wood to feed" platform is emerging as a strong contender among\r\nfishmeal alternatives, a growing suite of protein-rich replacements made\r\nfrom single-cell\r\nproteins, insects, food\r\nprocessing wastewater and other technologies. 

A major advantage of using waste wood collected from the\r\npulp and paper industry -- material that is usually burned presently -- is that\r\nthe supply chain is well developed and stocks are plentiful, he said. That will\r\neventually mean lower production costs for its SylPro feed ingredient, which is\r\nmade from a single-cell yeast that feeds on sugars derived from the wood. 

“We are sensitive that we need to be at a specific price\r\npoint to be competitive to other protein ingredients," he said. "Our\r\neconomics are built on being competitive with existing feed ingredients without\r\nnecessarily having to be at a premium.”

Feed makers need both scale and consistency and, as a\r\nfeedstock, waste wood delivers both, said Ekmay, who received his doctorate in\r\npoultry science from the University of Arkansas before working for Dow\r\nAgroSciences, which was spun off and is now known as Corteva Agriscience.

“When you’re trying to source methane or other waste\r\nproducts, having a consistent, reliable supply, especially at the volumes that\r\nare required to operate within the animal feed industry, those are\r\nsignificant,” he said adding that supply inputs have been one of the largest\r\nlimitations of organic waste products to date.

“There’s been a large push to feed waste to insects. Getting\r\na consistent supply of consistent composition becomes a large hurdle,” he\r\nsaid. 

Arbiom began life as a contract research organization, he\r\nsaid. It has developed extensive expertise in "biomass fractionation",\r\nthe process of breaking down the wood into a slurry containing carbon\r\ncomponents and sugars, which are then fermented.

The fermented sugars are then food for torula yeast, which\r\nbecomes the protein used as a fishmeal alternative. Torula yeast is already\r\nwidely used as a food additive.

“There’s no regulatory or safety issues there. It actually\r\nhas an extensive history of safety so there’s less of an adoption curve,” Ekmay\r\nsaid. 

Achieving scale

In preparation to commercialize its products, Arbiom is\r\ncurrently working with researchers at the US' Texas A&M University and\r\nIceland's Matis research institute on a series of feed trials which will\r\nfeature carnivorous fish such as salmon or trout. INRA (Institut national de la\r\nrecherche agronomique) in France will also be running a trout study.

“The animal feed industry is a very data-driven industry. To\r\nbe able to enter the space you need to show efficacy in the target species and\r\ndevelop a robust data package supporting that,“ Ekmay said. 

Recent trials in Texas showed good results for hybrid\r\nstriped bass fed a diet that included the company's feed ingredient. 

“Ultimately the take-home message is that this ingredient is\r\nhighly digestible, which is a critical criterion for sustainable animal\r\nnutrition. So we have a very high, 97% digestibility for our protein,” Ekmay\r\nsaid. 

The company, which is leading the European\r\nUnion-backed consortium Sylfeed, is able to incorporate it into feed\r\nin quantities of up to 20%, replacing fishmeal and plant proteins, he added.

On Aug. 28, announced that it was welcoming two new partners\r\nto the consortium: BioProcess Pilot Facility, in Delft, The Netherlands, and\r\nBio Base Europe Pilot Plant (BBEU), based in Ghent, Belgium. The addition\r\nbrings the number of organizations involved to 10.

While not yet a commercialized product, research is\r\n“sufficiently advanced” so that Arbiom is working with customers to produce\r\nlarge volumes to do further internal feed trials.

“We’re in the process of upscaling the technology, producing\r\ntonnage quantities so customers or other partners can evaluate this product\r\ninternally and then we can go from there," he said.

Arbiom plans to continue a battery of trials for several\r\nspecies in 2019 and 2020 and is looking for partners to “upscale” the\r\ntechnology and is planning demonstrations of the technology with the hopes of\r\nbuilding a commercial-scale facility in the next two to three years.

He said that the company's biomass fractionation knowledge\r\nis a key asset.

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“There are technologies out there that fractionate wood\r\nalready. What we’re able to do is we’ve got a technology that does it more\r\nefficiently and feeds into fermentation at a much more efficient, economic\r\nlevel,” he said.

Source : Undercurrent News