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Preliminary LCA data indicates promising early results from a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study of SylPro, a new alternative protein product produced by Arbiom. When compared to other protein sources, such as fish meal and soy protein concentrate, SylPro shows the lowest impact on climate change, supporting its viability as a sustainable solution to the looming global protein gap. The LCA study was conducted by Ostfoldforskning, a Norwegian consultancy with experience evaluating environmental performance of materials, fuels and feeds. The LCA methodology used for the study calculations was designed to focus on six particularly relevant environmental impact categories as identified in The Product Environmental Footprint Category rules (PEFCR) for “Feed for food-producing animals” (FEFAC, 2018). “From the beginning it has been our goal to develop a protein ingredient that was not only nutritional, economical and traceable, but also above all, sustainable,” said Marc Chevrel, CEO of Arbiom. “The preliminary LCA results are incredibly promising in helping to validate this goal, and in supporting Arbiom’s commitment to sustainably feed the world’s growing population.”

The LCA study accounted for all unit operations in Arbiom’s production process to produce SylPro from wood biomass. These included wood sourcing from forests to a representative Arbiom commercial unit and all energy and material use in each production step, including the production of the energy and material sources themselves. The last step accounted for transportation to end use in aquafeed. Among various environmental impact indicators, climate change was scrutinized according to IPCC2013 100 yr v.1.03 (Reference IPCC 2013). “We evaluated SylPro against other protein sources across multiple environmental impact categories, including its impact on climate change,” said Andreas Brekke, PhD, Senior Research Scientist from Ostfoldforskning. “While the results are preliminary, the data thus far shows positive signs in supporting SylPro® as a sustainable solution to the protein gap,” Brekke said. The LCA was conducted as part of the SYLFEED Project, an international and multidisciplinary project of 10 industry partners dedicated to scaling-up Arbiom’s Wood to Food Technology to convert wood residues into a protein-rich ingredient comprised of a microorganism for use in animal and aqua feed. Additional LCA results for SylPro® will be released later in 2020.

Today we launched a short introduction video to the Sylfeed project. It contains interviews with the partners of the project, explaining the scale-up of the Wood to Food technology and the roles of the partners, from wood sourcing to fish feed for aquaculture. Please have a look and you are very welcome to share it on social media.

A very successful 30 month General Assembly for the Sylfeed project was held this week, on the 4th and 5th of February, in Paris, France. Arbiom, the project coordinator, hosted the event. All partners presented their work packages, giving the group clear overview on the whole process, deliverables and milestones. A roadmap for the next 6 months until the next General Assembly was also presented. We will continue to keep you posted on the project’s development here on this website.

A new milestone paves way for SYLFEED as its Atlantic Salmon trials successfully demonstrate efficacy of novel protein for aqua feed.

The juvenile Atlantic salmon study was conducted by Matis Icelandic Food & Biotech R&D as part of the SYLFEED project, and it was designed to demonstrate the nutritional performance of Arbiom’s protein product (SylPro®) compared to conventional plant and animal protein sources.

“These findings indicate that SylPro can be used to replace fish meal or plant-based proteins in feed for juvenile Atlantic salmon, a crucial developmental stage, and deliver equivalent nutritional performance as conventional protein sources up to 20 percent inclusion level,” said Alexandra Leeper, PhD candidate from Matis.

Arbiom and partners in the SYLFEED consortium are continuing to validate the nutritional performance and sustainability of SylPro as a new source of protein produced from wood.

The SYLFEED 24 month general assembly for the Sylfeed project was held last week, on the 17^th and 18^th of September, in Ghent, Belgium. The meeting took place at the facilities of the BioBase Europe Pilot Plant (BBEU), a new partner in the SYLFEED project along with BioBased Pilot Facility (BPF). It was a perfect opportunity to meet and get to know the new partners and also to see the pilot plant up close and in action.

The meeting was successful and we look forward to the next stages of the project. We will make sure to keep you posted here on this web page.

A successful 18 month general assembly for the Sylfeed project was held last week, on the 12^th and 13^th of February. The meeting was hosted by Arbiom in Paris.

The meeting was a perfect opportunity for all partners to meet and review the project objectives and the work plan, with a short overview on each work package. Special focus was on actions launched during the first period and main achievements, along with deliverable and milestone status at this stage of the project.

The first of the small-scale feeding trials has just started with the juvenile Atlantic Salmon trial.

Juvenile Atlantic salmon have been chosen to assess the impact of Sylpro on growth shortly after first feeding of fish, when their growth rate is rapid and protein requirements high. At the start of the experiment all fish were individually weighed with all tanks starting with equal numbers of fish and biomass. At the end of the trial all individual fish will be weighed again to assess how growth performance varied across feed treatments.

In November 2018 diets were formulated for the first trials of SYLFEED.  This includes two small-scale trials, the first with juvenile Atlantic Salmon and the second with Nile Tilapia.  The two species have very different nutritional requirements since Atlantic Salmon is a carnivorous species and Nile Tilapia is an omnivorous species so unique diets must be formulated for each. 

Matis has produced 10 feed treatments with various inclusion levels of SylPro replacing current protein sources used in commercial diets. Animal trials will start beginning of 2019.