South of Russia-based USD20 million project to use alternative materials as main protein source for fish feeds

The Supervisory Council of the Special Economic Zone Lotus in Astrakhan has approved a business plan of the investment project of “Construction of a plant for the production of starter and grower feeds for aquaculture facilities” submitted by Rybniye Korma JSC, according to Lotos’s press-centre.

The feeds developed by Rybniye Korma are made mostly from the raw materials grown in the Astrakhan Region. The company has worked out the recipes and biotechnologies for processing of protein components enabling use of soybean, canola and cotton meal, as well as feather meal and meat and bone waste of poultry-processing industry as the main source of protein in fish feeds. This technology helps raise the degree of protein digestibility up to 86-92% and stop using imported soybean meal.

This specially prepared microbial protein to be used as a main protein component for fry feeds will enable the producer to get the feeds comparable in nutritional and growth characteristics to similar products from leading European manufacturers.

The project is aimed at replacement of imported products in the consumer regions, as well as to improve the competitiveness of Astrakhan-based fish farms under the conditions of rising prices for imported feeds. Target markets for the products are the Southern Federal District, the North Caucasian Federal District, the Volga Federal District and some regions of the Central Federal District. For salmon feeds, the company is going to win a 50% share in the above districts of Russia. For sturgeon feeds, the company plans to get one third on the target markets.

Total investments into the project are expected to exceed 1.3 billion rubles or ca. 20 million US dollars. The designed production capacity amounts to 50 thousand tons of feed per year as of September 2022.