Lipid Tech makes sustainable fish feed for your plate

This article was initially published in French on infobref.com

Many fish intended for human consumption are raised in aquaculture or fish farms.
These fish are rarely fed using sustainable practices. Montreal-based start-up Lipid Tech has developed a process to produce an environmentally-friendly and healthy fish feed.

The problem the company is tackling is the lack of sustainable processes in the production of feed for fish farms.”The feed used in aquaculture and fish farming is often produced from small fish caught in the ocean,” explains Brandon Jaunky, CEO and co-founder of GC Lipid Tech. The entrepreneur points out that this resource is becoming scarce and will run out in the future.

The industry has begun to adapt by feeding fish a plant-based diet. But this plant-based food is not as nutritious. As a result, plant-based fish have poorer nutritional properties for human consumption.

Lipid Tech’s solution is to cultivate nutritious microalgae. “We’ve modified the genes of the algae we grow to adapt their nutrient and good fat content to fish diets,” explains Brandon Jaunky.

These algae are added to pellets used to feed farmed fish such as salmon, tilapia and trout. The nutrients contained in the microalgae replace those of the small fish that farmed fish should be eating. The microalgae produced by Lipid Tech offer 3 advantages:

• They are a sustainable and environmentally-friendly food source.
• They are richer in omega-3 fatty acids than other plant-based granules.
• They have the potential to cost less than animal feed.

The business model will be to sell laboratory-grown algae to manufacturers of feed for farmed fish. The company is in the pre-commercialization stage. It is currently running a pilot project with a major fish feed producer.

Lipid Tech is one of 20 start-ups selected this year in Startup Montréal’s Bourse+ program.

Next steps:

The company plans to start marketing its product this year.

For the moment, Lipid Tech occupies premises at Concordia University. But Brandon Jaunky is already planning to equip his company with a factory. This, he says, will be an essential step in commercializing his product on a large scale.