25
Revolutionizing tuna farming
To meet global demand for bluefin tuna while protecting the species, many seafood processors rely on fish farms. The major challenge in successfully rearing tuna lies in the fish feed. Together with the Japanese company Nissui, Bühler has developed a tuna feed that will enable sustainable, economic farming.
Tsuyoshi Goto is on board a fishing boat owned by Kaneko Sangyo, a group company of Nissui Cooperation, one of the largest Japanese seafood processors. It’s 9 a. m., and the ship is near Kabashima Island in the Sea of Japan, about 90 kilometers from the mainland. It’s feeding time. The bluefin tuna are excited, swimming circles around the aquafarm. They know what is about to happen. They are fed three times a week in the spring. Goto-san bends down, reaches into the sack behind him, and takes out a handful of oblong pellets. They look like a mix of chocolate and energy bar, but they definitely smell fishy. “This is the future of tuna farming,” he says, tossing the pellets into the 40 -by-40-meter floating cage. This is the signal that feeding time is about to start. The handful of pellets is followed by a canon shot that blows one ton of feed into the cage. The tuna comes. Nearly 1.2 meters long, the creatures stir the water, racing for the energy bars. Tsuyoshi Goto is Plant and Quality Manager at Farm Choice, a subsidiary of Nissui. Farm Choice produces feed for fish farming. Together with Bühler, his team developed these extruded pellets, the key to sustainable, economical tuna farming.
Story and photos by Martin Hoffmann.
