AFDF has contracted with QuotaMax and FishTek, Inc. to develop a demonstration pilot plant to show the process and system design for stabilizing and recovering salmon processing waste utilizing “modified silage” from small processors in remote communities. The project is to demonstrate the design and operation of a 450 lb batch plant for salmon processors and provide a cost estimate for a 25 mt plant for location in rural Alaska communities. The project ran demonstration batches at the NOAA Fisheries Montlake Lab in Seattle, WA as part of the mutual interest in optimizing fishery utilization.
To date, the project has demonstrated the stabilized approach to 16 different companies, as well as state and federal researchers and NOAA fisheries scientists. Products developed to date include salmon meals with and without soluble proteins, gelatins, chondroitin rich cartilage powders, and bone meal. Fishery researchers are using the whole meal in fish growing experiments with Hawaiian threadfin. Interest in the suite of spin-off products from this process have been expressed by pet food companies, nutrition companies and shown at the USDA/NOAA Alternative Aquaculture Feed meeting in Silver Spring, MD in April 2008.
