U.S. Soy Meal Cuts Costs for Filipino Shrimp Farmer
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USSEC recently visited Marcela Farms, a shrimp feed mill in the Philippines, for a feed formulation and production meeting. Levy Loreto Manalac, USSEC technical manager of aquaculture in the Philippines, and Mark Newman, USSEC feed mill and nutrition consultant, met with the owner of the facility, as well as the nutritionist, quality assurance manager and plant manager. They discussed the results of a recent shrimp feed demonstration that used four different feed formulations with varying sources of soy protein. Those included Navita Soy (Schillinger Genetics), soy protein concentrate (SPC), U.S. soy meal and Marcela’s formulation. Results found that Marcela’s shrimp feed cost the most to produce a kilogram of shrimp at $2.27, while U.S. soy meal cost the least at $1.65. The SPC, even with a low feed conversion ratio, cost $2.14 and Navita Soy cost $1.73. The USSEC staff used these results to show using U.S. soy meal in shrimp feed formulations could save Marcela Farms more than $435,000 annually.