Monday, February 20, 2017

21/02/2017: New challenges and opportunities

by Ioannis Zabetakis

In Aquafarming industry, as in every other, some of the burning questions we face every day are around cost analysis, supply management and branding
 
Ioannis Zabetakis

However some of the rather hidden opportunities could be around the nutritional value of products and how these products can be better branded and marketed in a challenging environment where borders are virtually non-existent.

One of the issues that I remind my students often about is the use of hurdle technology in order to maximise shelf-file and therefore increase the size of the potential markets where we can sell our products.

Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) is an excellent tool to prolong shelf life. MAP can give fish fillets an expiry date about 7-9 days from day of production. Therefore, the product can practically travel around the globe!

What’s next?
With this in mind, let’s have a look at some of the new challenges that lie ahead.

Challenge one: Marine Pathogens
The aquaculture industry is constantly expanding to meet the needs of the global population and ever growing demand for quality protein. Economic sustainability of this industry requires an increasing diversification of cultured fish species.

A prerequisite of the introduction of new species to aquaculture is the development of larval cultures and assessing their growth and health on exposure to water from the open sea.

The semi-intensive “mesocosm” technique can be used to determine the specific biological, ecological and nutritional needs of each species, as rearing methodologies used in other established species may not be applicable.

Under the technique, unfiltered seawater is supplied to tanks in order to enhance natural planktonic productivity, providing live feed prey to the fish larvae in addition to supplements of cultured live feeds such as rotifers or Artemia.


Read the full article HERE.

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