The STIP, from Solidaridad and Wageningen UR, provides insight in seafood supply chains, helping suppliers and buyers to find each other, connect, trade and invest in tomorrow’s sustainable seafood supply.
It does so through a supplier and a buyer search engine, focusing on seafood suppliers from Asia and South America and buyers around the world.
The use of insects in EU animal feed has been a hot topic this week. Insect producers from the the International Platform of Insects for Food and Feed (IPIFF) have called for European legislation to be adapted to allow insect products as a sustainable and innovative source of animal proteins for food consumption and animal feed.
At present, insect companies in the EU mainly produce for pet food. However, the potential for insect meal is huge, especially for the aquaculture feed sector.
IPIFF is asking for the revision of the EU feed legislation in order to allow insect products reared on 100 per cent vegetables substrates to be used as sources of proteins for aquaculture, poultry and pigs.
The use of insects in feed seems to be quite favourable. A research team from Ghent University found that the idea of using insects in animal feed was rejected by only 17 per cent of a sample of 415 farmers, agriculture sector stakeholders and consumers from Flanders, Belgium.
Insects were also discussed at the British Society of Animal Science conference held in Chester, UK. Research presented by Maureen Wakefield, Food and Environment Research Agency, suggested that insects perform as well as soy as a source of protein.
In other feed news, BioMar has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with leading Chinese feed producer Tongwei Co. Ltd to establish a Joint Venture dedicated to producing and selling high performance feed for aquaculture in China.
The target of the Joint Venture is to become one of the leading suppliers of high performance feed to the Chinese aquaculture sector and in a second step to expand further to other Asian markets.
The two companies have agreed to start building a feed factory with an annual capacity over 100,000 metric tons in China, scheduled to start operation in 2016.
