Beer helps create sustainable fisheries
February 10, 2009
It’s not quite turning water into wine, but turning beer scum into fish is still pretty impressive.
Entrepreneurs at Oberon FMR have developed a method to use the otherwise useless (and expensive to dispose) byproducts of beer manufacturing to create food for farmed fish. The innovative solution takes an existing waste product and converts it to a desperately needed replacement for fish meal.
On a global scale, aquaculture still relies too heavily on wild-caught seafood to feed farmed fish, contributing to the problem of overfishing. Oberon FMR sidesteps the wild fish by using the remnants of barley and hops to create protein using bacteria; this protein is used to create a fish food without the heavy ecological toll of harvesting more fish. According to the company, the process becomes even more sustainable to implement because it requires little in the way of new equipment – most of the basic requirements already exist in water treatment plants.
The young company has attracted attention recently and recently won the grand prize at a biotech venture capital contest. It’s a good example of a using science to create more sustainable protein sources, as well as a nice example of a green business (Colorado’s New Belgium Brewery) helping to foster innovation by providing the raw materials used in the pilot study.
