BioMar invests in new large Feed Trial Unit in Chile - BioMar Group

BIOMAR GROUP
Press Release, 21 st March 2013
BioMar invests in new large Feed Trial Unit in Chile
The BioMar Group announced today the construction of a new facility for Research
and Development. It will be located together with one of BioMar’s three Chilean
factories in Pargua outside Puerto Montt.
Paddy Campbell, Global R&D Director in the BioMar Group, tells that the new unit will
consist of 148 tanks divided on three different recirculation systems. The Feed Trial Unit
(FTU) will be the largest of its kind in Chile and it will provide a substantial increase in the
trial capacity available to BioMar’s Global Research & Development Organization.
- The capability to perform significant amounts of feed trials is becoming more and more
decisive for feed manufacturers. The days when fish feed consisted of a handful of
different ingredients are gone. With the volatile raw material markets and an increasing
amount of new raw material types - e.g. protein concentrates - becoming available, feed
suppliers have to be able to integrate new ingredients in the feed recipes fast, and with
proper documentation of feed performance, flesh quality and fish health, says Paddy
Campbell.
The new FTU will enable BioMar to perform simultaneous trials with both fresh and sea
water in three separate closed systems with control of environmental factors such as water
temperature, oxygen levels, salinity, and photoperiod.
Paddy Campbell tells that the facilities primarily will be used for trials with Atlantic Salmon,
Rainbow Trout and Coho Salmon. - We can perform tests with first feeding fry to harvest
size, and the facility will include a small hatchery to secure that we have a steady supply of
disease free eggs.
Some of the primary focus areas of the Feed Trial Unit will be the further development and
refinement of BioMar’s YTELSE Performance Concept and new types of SMART Feed as
well as to investigate the link between nutrition and fish health.
- With the new unit we gain a greater flexibility. We will have a better possibility to perform
precise benchmark trials for different diets and to evaluate their biological and economic
performance for our customers, he says.
The Feed Trial Unit in Pargua will also be used for the development and testing of new
diets for recirculation systems such as BioMar’s ORBIT Concept.
Paddy Campbell explains that recirculation systems require a much more precise
formulation of the feed compared to traditional farming systems; the reason is that the feed
used in recirculation systems at the same time must give optimal growth and not hinder
BioMar Group - Vaerkmestergade 25, 6th floor - DK-8000 Aarhus C - Denmark - Phone +45 86 20 49 70 - www.biomar.com

optimal bio-filter performance. This creates particular challenges when the recipe
composition changes fast and it makes trial capacity and very accurate measuring
methods essential.
The announcement of the new Feed Trial Unit comes shortly after the opening of a BioMar
Feed Trial Unit in Costa Rica targeted at feed development for warm water fish species, in
particular tilapia and shrimp. With the new facility in Chile, BioMar will operate a total of six
trial stations in Europe and Latin America, including both land based and marine facilities
and covering all growing conditions from tropical to subarctic.
Paddy Campbell underlines that the new Feed Trial Unit should not be seen as a Chilean
unit. - It will form an integrated part of our global research and development structure and
it will benefit all customers globally as the additional capacity and the flexible closed
system will allow us to speed up trial sequences and our product development process.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For further information please contact:
• Paddy Campbell, Global R&D Director, BioMar Group, pcampbell@biomar.com
• Michael Adler, R&D Manager, BioMar Americas, madler@biomar.com