Aquaculture Industry

Below is a feature published in Fish Farming International, September 2006, Vol 33, No9

'ENTER THE DRAGON! new mill to make Wales a world centre for feed'

''Wales could well become a world centre for sourcing aquaculture feed after the go-ahead was recently given to build a new 500,000 tonnes a year capacity mill to process polychaete worms farmed by Dragon Feeds of Aberavon.

Dragon Feeds has just started operations at a £3 million test facility, built with EU Objective One grant aid, which the Welsh company will use to develop and refine diets based on these marine worms for a wide range of aquaculture fish and shellfish species.

The company has already developed a 100% replacement maturation diet, claimed to be the only such feed on the market.

Its new, bigger mill will be based at Baglan Energy Park and is scheduled for completion by the end of next year. Company founder Tony Smith tells FFI that it should be running at full capacity within around six years, by which time the enterprise expects to have a turnover of up to £300 million and employ up to 4000 people.

Plans also envisage harvesting, processing and distribution infrastructure using dock facilities at Swansea.

Aquaculture interest in polychaete worms – Dragon Feeds’ production is based on native ragworms (Nereis virens) – has increased exponentially in recent years.  Indeed Dragon Feeds, which began farming the animals in 1998 mainly for the sport fishing trade, has been swamped with requests for trial samples from various aquaculture sectors received at recent trade exhibitions around the world.

Farming feed has obvious environmental benefits, as well as financial, given the increasing cost of traditional raw materials for aquafeed.  Dragon Feeds has already proven that up to 30 tonnes a hectare can be grown successfully – possibly even 50 tonnes/ha.

Tony Smith explains that the company has already sold live, fresh and frozen polychaetes to shrimp hatcheries. “We decided that the best way to service that market would be with a processed broodstock feed made from polychaetes,” he said, pointing out that Dragon Feeds’ new shrimp maturation diet does not require any other supplements.

“Our early trials show that Penaeus vannamei mature and spawn on this diet. Other trials are taking place around the world.  Because it’s such a nutritious processed feed – with less leaching –you don’t need to use as much of it as you do with other maturation feeds.”

Dragon Feeds carry out what it calls ‘cold processing’ to preserve the worms` nutritional quality.  “This means out temperatures never go above 80degC,” said Smith.  “We put the worms into the feeds as a puree, as a wet product, mixed with the dry ingredients.  We also put fishmeal, mussels and squid in there, so it has a good strong fishy odour.  It’s a huge attractant.

“It’s a 3mm dry pellet, packaged in 5kg aluminium foiled, nitro-flushed packs in a plastic bucket with measuring cup and with a self life at room temperature of 12 months.  Shrimp are messy eaters, but when they drop out pellets, they pick them up again because they remain very stable in the water.”

Dragon Feeds produces the worms in about seven months, egg to harvest.  “We grow through the spring, summer and autumn, and harvest in the winter,” explained Smith.

“The average harvest size is about 7g, about 150mm long. They’re detritus feeders; they feed on whatever settles to the floor of the ocean.”

The company grows the worms in 100 x 10m raceways, and has some production in The Netherlands in 500 x 15m raceways.''

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