New fish feed from beer waste

Tor-Eddie Fossbakk The popular Fat Tire Amber Ale has been heralded for its "toasty malty" flavor. However, the Colorado based New Belgium Brewing Co. beer has another characteristic: It is a key ingredient in an environmentally friendly form of fish food. According to an article in Rocky Mountain News online, the trio and their Idaho Springs startup hope to usher in change to the booming business of fish farming, or aquaculture. Fish farming has taken off as the world's catch of wild fish has hit a plateau. Global fish consumption, meanwhile, is climbing. Farm-raised fish such as salmon and tilapia rely on other fish such as anchovies and menhaden, which are ground into fishmeal. "We can't support the growth of the aquaculture business using fish to feed fish," Randy Swenson, CEO of Oberon FMR Inc., told the newspaper. "The business we're in is fish meal replacement." Global fishmeal production has been relatively flat at around 6-7 million metric tons a year in recent years. Aquaculture output, by contrast, has been climbing at an annual clip of 5-plus percent, to more than 48 million metric tons in 2005. Oberon has teamed with the Colorado School of Mines and New Belgium to brew up its "fish meal replacement" at a pilot production plant at New Belgium in Fort Collins, Colorado. The pilot facility will feed and convert the protein-laden bacteria already swarming in New Belgium's brewing wastewater. The goal is to change the bacteria into a protein-rich biomass. The resulting jelly-like goop will be dried into granules and added to fish feed, reducing the need for fishmeal in the feed. Mines and Oberon landed a USD 1.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation in 2006 to help bankroll the effort and to try out the protein ingredient in Bangladesh, a key aquaculture country. According to the article, Oberon's product is different from those being developed by other companies, such as Norway's Aker BioMarine and Florida's Neptune Industries Inc. The article explained that none of the other products are based on material that is ultimately thrown away.