SBIR Phase I: Microbial Enhancement of Soybeans for Salmonid Diets

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This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project aims to develop microbially enhanced plant protein to replace fishmeal in aquaculture feeds. Environmental issues and commercial constraints make substituting plant protein for fishmeal a long standing goal of the aquaculture industry. Non-nutritive carbohydrates in soybeans represent a particularly difficult technical challenge in using microbial treatment to enhance soy protein. To address this challenge, this project proposes to combine innovations in rapid, multi-criteria strain isolation and screening, solid substrate culture technology and salmonid diet formulation. The principle tasks of this Phase I project are to demonstrate technical feasibility of selecting microbes to meet multiple criteria, to develop solid substrate culture processes, and to incorporate enhanced soy into trout diets. The commercial application of this project is in the area of aquaculture. A plant protein meeting requirements of the domestic trout industry and government hatcheries could find immediate commercial application in displacing approximately 25,000 tons of fishmeal. Worldwide aquaculture is forecast to consume about 2.8 million tons of fishmeal in the year 2010 with commercial value in excess of $1.5 billion. An enhanced plant protein could capture a significant share of this market.