Fishmeal alternatives is a sustainable and friendly environmental approach for intensive aquaculture. However, the development of the fishmeal alternatives to address not only animal performance and physical characters of the final pellets but also availability and quality consistency has been a big challenge for aqua-feed industry. A high-quality product of corn protein concentrates - namely "Empyreal 75" - has been developed by Cargill US and proven with very good performances in salmon, shrimp, yellow tail, grouper, barramundi, snakehead fish, etc. for several years.
The production technology of the product results in a very pure concentrated protein with very low starch, low ash and low fiber that is attractive to diets for aqua carnivorous species while especially high in methionine, glutamic acid and leucine sources together with high capability of oil binding that is also attractive to marine-fish feed formulators using the product at very high inclusion to replace fishmeal and to enhance physical quality of the pellets. A common application of 8% to 20% in aqua marine diets of salmon, trout, yellow tail, pompano, barramundi and grouper fish while 5% - 12% has been applied in shrimp feeds and 3% to 5% in freshwater fish diets all resulted in good performances for ADG and FCR. In this paper, the advantages of this product in aqua feeds together with animal performances on different aqua species (freshwater and marine species) will be discussed and delivered.