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By ADM:
ADM is a leader in global nutrition that creates and combines ingredients and flavors for food and beverages, supplements, animal feed, and more.
The Chicago-based company has offices, factories, and research centers all around the globe, where science-backed solutions are ideated and developed to address the challenges currently facing the nutrition industry.
Always underpinned by the key pillars of sustainability, performance and profitability, ADM offers a unique vertically integrated portfolio, providing superior customer service and experience to address the challenges customers face.
Within ADM’s Animal Nutrition division, a team of aquaculture experts is dedicated to meeting the needs of aquaculture producers that fulfill the demand for food of a growing population in an efficient and sustainable way.
Three Pillars for Aquaculture Success: Sustainability, performance, and profitability
Aquaculture production faces several challenges and stressors that complicate its day-to-day operations. Transportation, transfers, gradings, and vaccination procedures expose fish to hypoxia, injuries, diverse water qualities, and various infectious environments.
Farm economics, and in particular profitability, is one of the main drivers of a commercial aquaculture farm. Parameters such as feed conversion rate (FCR), feed digestibility or survivability are constantly monitored to ensure the correct health status and growth of the animals. In addition, other variables such as size and weight or fillet quality are defining the quality categories for the final consumer and thus the price.
Furthermore, most of these events occur during the juvenile stage when the fish are immature – both in terms of digestive and immune function – making them more sensitive and vulnerable. These events may result in death and/or performance loss and can potentially affect the whole production process.
ADM’s goal is to support the health and nutritional requirements of aquatic species by focusing specifically on sustainable solutions and practices that improve aquaculture production.
To do so, ADM offers tailored performance and nutritional solutions, which cover early life stages through harvest: applying precision nutrition methods to meet the specific needs of species at different stages optimizing growth, physiology, and animal health, in addition to improving overall performance and efficiency.
Aquatrax: building an inner strength for fishes & shrimps
The latest incorporation to ADM’s aquaculture portfolio is Aquatrax, a dedicated aqua feed additive based on Pichia guillermondii. It incorporates novel yeast technology with unique morphological and structural properties that provide immune support to shrimps and fishes, particularly in the presence of potentially noxious microorganisms and other stressors.
Aquatrax is the fruit of more than 20 years of research, supported by more than 150 studies resulting in an exclusive prebiotic additive purified from whole P. guillermondii cells. The Aquatrax mode of action impacts directly upon the animal’s immune physiology, intestinal ecology and the potentially harmful microbial agents population, promoting improved performance.
Aquatrax was developed through specialized fermentation and heat-conditioning of pure, whole cell P. guilliermondii, a small yeast cell with a high surface area to volume ratio: for example, 25g of Aquatrax have ~ 100 m2 surface area available for interaction.
The high hydrophobicity of P. guilliermondii enables it to readily diffuse through the intestinal environment.
The Aquatrax cell wall contains key components involved in infectious microorganisms binding and immune modulation, such as mannans and β-Glucans. The yeast cell wall particularly interacts with Gram-negative enterobacteria thanks to the ability of mannans (MOS) to bind type-1 fimbriated bacteria through mannose-specific lectins. This interaction may prevent bacteria from colonizing the host’s intestinal epithelium.
Insights on latest Aquatrax results
ADM’s research has demonstrated that Aquatrax provides immune support in shrimp and fish for enhanced productivity.
On a first trial conducted in Thailand on Litopenaeus vannamei shrimps under a Vibrio harbeyi challenge, Aquatrax supplemented animals showed an increased proportion of granular hemocytes (involved in critical shrimp immune response) as well as an increased clearance of V. harveryi cells in hemolymph, compared to non-supplemented animals.
Aquatrax efficiency is also demonstrated in the presence of White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV). This can be seen in the results from a study in Peru, with post larval (PL16) L. vannamei shrimp supplemented with the yeast, exhibiting an 84% higher survivability rate than challenged control group animals.
The latest challenge under which Aquatrax has proven to provide shielding support to aquatic animals is Vibrio parahaemolyticus, causing Early Mortality Syndrome (EMS). In a wet laboratory in Peru, post larval (PL13) L. vannamei shrimpfed Aquatrax diet demonstrated a 76% higher survival rate than control diet fed animals.
In unchallenged conditions Aquatrax is also able to improve the performance of shrimps. 2 parallel trials run at an ADM experimental facility in Vietnam demonstrated that L. vannamei sub-adults supplemented with Aquatrax for 48 days achieved a significantly higher body weight in both cage and tank system, by 9% and 10% respectively.
In conclusion, it has been demonstrated that the inclusion of Aquatrax in shrimp diets is associated with an improved immune response against harmful challenges and an overall better performance.
Additionally, ADM is investigating the beneficial effects of P. guillermondii in main commercial fish species, where it already provides complete feed solutions.
ADM AQUA solutions and services
Aquatrax is part of the broad and comprehensive offer of ADM solutions for aquaculture. Together with additives, premixes and complete feeds are carefully formulated for multiple species and ages.
ADM can directly partner with feed formulators, to offer customized solutions that cope with fish producers’ concerns.
Additionally, ADM offers a full pantry of aquaculture solutions informed by industry-leading expertise. Feed mills and producers can benefit not only from innovative feed additives but cutting-edge technology and the latest production processes to streamline efficiency.
ADM is a premier global human and animal nutrition company, delivering solutions today with an eye to the future.
