KAS wins the
Seafood Innovation Award 2021 at NASF 2021 for astaxanthin fermentation technology
In competition between 8 companies at Seafood Innovation Day NASF 2021, the seafood industry’s own innovation award went to Kuehnle AgroSystems from Hawaii for their fermentation technology to produce natural astaxanthin for the aquafeeds market.
Kuehnle AgroSystems has developed a patented low-cost fermentation technology to produce natural astaxanthin for the aquafeeds market. Their breakthrough technology is high yield production of algae by dark fermentation. The fermentation process enables greater output volumes and lower cost that light-dependent algae production methods.Astaxanthin is commonly added in a synthetic form for improving coloration of salmonids and crustaceans. Natural algae astaxanthin is too scarce and too expensive for the aquafeeds.The competition for this year´s Seafood Innovation Award was very tight, but the audience at Seafood Innovation Day and the jury have together voted forward one company:
The winner has developed a new and innovative technology that enables drastic improvements to the production of an important ingredient in the seafood industry. To increase the consumption of seafood in a growing global population, we need to produce healthy, tasty and sustainable seafood. We need natural and sustainable produced key ingredients – one of them which the winner is producing – so the market potential is huge. Their fermentation technology presents a breakthrough as they enable cost-efficient and high-volume production of natural astaxanthin for the aquafeed market.
The audience at Seafood Innovation Day together with a jury, voted for the winner of Seafood Innovation Award, June 8th, at North Atlantic Seafood Forum, the world´s largest seafood conference. The seafood industry itself has taken the initiative for the award aiming to stimulate and recognize knowledge-based innovation and entrepreneurship.
