Algae chief explains F3 exit
The chief executive of Belgium-based TomAlgae has said "it was like comparing apples and pears" as he explained to fishfarmingexpert.com why the company has withdrawn as a contestant in the $200,000 F3 Fish-Free Feed Challenge.
The challenge, which encourages innovation of alternative ingredients for aquaculture feeds that are as nutritious and healthy to fish and consumers as conventional fish-based feeds, offers a prize of $200,000 to the first team to produce and sell 100,000 metric tonnes of aquafeed that does not contain marine animal meal or oil by September 15 this year.
China-based Guangdong Evergreen Feed Industry currently leads the contest, which was launched in November 2015 on the HeroX crowdfunding site, after selling more than 48,000 metric tonnes of fish-free feed during the reporting phase from May 1 2016 to December 31 2016.
After withdrawing as an F3 Challenge competitor, but remaining as a participant - which means sales will no longer be reported - TomAlgae chief executive and co-founder William van der Riet explained to fishfarmingexpert.com: “Even before we entered the competition we knew that 100,000 metric tonnes was not achievable for us, as we are focusing on the very early stage hatchery applications, with a single-cell algae product fed by the gram rather than by the tonne – in fact roughly 200 grams per million post-larvae shrimp. The competition, on the other hand, is very much focused on bulk compound feed meals, so it would be like comparing apples and pears.
'Absolutely worthwhile'
“Although we have withdrawn from the competitive side, we are still very active in the challenge as regards exchanging ideas with other companies, and believe that for this reason it was beneficial to take part. We have had some brilliant meetings and we all understand that aquaculture is getting more important as a source of protein to the world and as a source of much-needed income to some developing countries. TomAlgae believes that the F3 Fish-Free challenge is absolutely worthwhile because it gives people an incentive to look at alternative to fish oil and fish meal in their feed ingredients.”
Myanmar-based Htoo Thit Co and Biomin lies second in the challenge, with 28,000 metric tonnes of fish free-feed sold.
Contestants from Thailand, Indonesia, China, South Africa, Australia, Pakistan, Myanmar, the Netherlands and the US are advancing to the second sales reporting stage of the contest, with the next deadline April 15.
The latest standings can be found at https://herox.com/F3/updates.
