How BioAtio improves the Tilapia is digestibility?

The aquaculture has a key role in food safety throughout the world. According to the FAO- Food and Agriculture Organization of The United Nations- report in 2016 [1], the aquaculture will be, until 2025, as projected, the most growing farming activity in developing countries.

The FAO report point out a relevant position of Brasil that, during this period, could increase its production in 104% [1].

A few factors explain this production growth, starting for the investment performed by the aquaculture growers, going through favourable climate conditions, as well as the development of research and tecnologies.

Added to these factores is the offer of fortified foods that provide benefits to the animals’ metabolism and health, besides generating value to the producers, such as the BioActio Health & Performance Hydrolysed Chicken Protein by BRF Ingredients, as we will see later.

In this perspective, FAO’s last report (2016) [1] noted that the world production of aquaculture was 73,8 million tonnes.

Of this total, 49,8 million tonnes were fishes, 16,1 million tonnes were molluscs, 6,9 million crustaceans and 7,3 millions other aquatic organisms. One notes that fish farming represented more than 50% of the total world production.

This being said, we must highlight the aquaculture production in Brasil that is constantly growing since 2015, when achieved a total amount of 574,163 thousand tonnes.

From that total, 69,9% were fishes, 20,6% were shrimps, 2% molluscs and 0,1% other animals. In 2015, the tilapia farming already standed out in the sector, reaching 2019,3 thousend tonnes, according to IBGE informations [2].

The importance of aquaculture to Brasil is ever increasing. In 2021, for example, the fish production reached the impressive figure of 841 thousand tonnes, according to data from Anuário Peixe BR da Piscicultura 2022 [3].

With particular reference to the growth of tilapias production, that reached 45% in eight Years. Besides, in 2021, this species represented 63,5% of total 841 thousand tonnes of fish produced in the country. That means more than 534 thousand tonnes.

“The expansion of tilapicultura in the country contributes to the development of other farming, since the tilapia is considered an animal experimentation model, the studies performed with it can be applied to other species, bringing benefits to the entire sector” [4].

However, this intensification of cultures requires a bigger development of researching and inovations, to seek well-balanced formulations that provide maximum performance to the animals, being animal nutrition one of the producers biggest challenges.

Two consequences are central in this challenge: the first one is to find an ingredient that is nutritional, safe and provides various benefits to the species. The other one, and this is na important issue to the producer, is the cost-benefit of formulations.

Due to the fact that the investment in animal nutrition represents the majority of the growers budget that, regarding aquaculture as a whole and fish farming in particular, utilize, traditionally, fishmeal as the main ingredient.

However, there are two points that we should pay attention about the fishmeal in the tilapia’s and other aquatic organisms’ diet: besides being an more expensive product, has a more scarce supply.

Furthermore, fishmeal generates more residues in the bottom of creation tanks, wich can cause problems with water quality and culture health.

“The intensification of the cultive becomes viable only with the development of balanced diets, that improves physiological conditions and consequently, provides a better zootechnical performance of the farmed species” [5].

Therefore, the Animal Nutrition industry, having companies such as BRF Ingredients, through researches and inovations, has created high quality and maximum performance protein ingredients, such as BioActio Health & Performance Hydrolysed Chicken Proteins.

The hydrolysed proteins are produced via enzymatic hydrolysis, a process that does not need strict chemical methods in its production.

This process, when using water, breaks the enzyme and generates smaller bioactive peptide and amino acid chains, wich brings various benefits to the tilapias, such as high digestibility coefficient (CDA), among others excellent results.

BRF Ingredients BioActio Health & Performance hydrolysed protein is rich in functional peptides and is a formulation that, once included in tilapias diet, improves the fish metabolism and health, with scientifically proven results.

As we will see next, BioActio, in addition to provide metabolic improvements, in tilapias’s health and performance, is a sustainable formulation, since increases the utilization of animal byproducts, wich causes the reduction of residues in the environment, contributing to the decrease of water pollution.

The reutilization of byproducts deriving of animal slaughter is getting more and more notorious and is a market tendency of 2023 and the following years, accompanying the utilization of biotechnology in the transformation of balanced and equilibrated ingredients.

Mora, Reig and Toldrá (2016) [6] indicate that the agroindustries residues treatment have a big impact in the economy, the disposal being as costly as the use of technology to transformation of products that add value to the production chain.

Moving in the same Direction, other researchers pinpoint that the byproducts utilization is a sustainable oportunity and a profitability source of the activity, highlighting the added value that these formulations have when compared to the fishmeal, main product in the use of some raw materials [7].

The impacts of BioActio in tilapias’ digestibility and performance.

One of the biggest benefits of BioActio Health & Performance is on animal digestibility.

This topic is not only important to the species with BRF Ingredients formulation diets.

High digestibility also affect the amount of residues in the environment, wich impacts, in the tilapia case, in the amount of water in the culture tanks, as mentioned.

As mentioned before, BioActio Health & Performance is rich in bioactive peptides, that are absorbed through different amino acid vias, being fully used in the tilapias’ metabolism.

For this reason, the peptides are not hydrolysed by the endogenous enzymes, witch means, in a simple way, that they don’t compete with other substances absorption./p>

This way, peptides get to the bloodstream integrally, performing bioactivities in the tilapias’ organisms, such as immunomodulatings, antioxidants and antimicrobial.

The high apparent digestibility coefficient (CDA) promoted by BioActio, that reaches 94% digestibility among tilapias, provide the improvement on the metabolism and in animal health, since the molecular mass of BRF Ingredients formulation has 100% of bioactive peptides bellow 3.000Da.

Furthermore, the BioActio Heatlh & Performance hydrolysed increases the tilapias survival rate. Scientifically proven studies point out that the inclusion of the ingredient in the tilapias’ diet in the post-larvae phase increases in 12% the fishes survival.

Those researches also confirm that the utilization of the BioActio Hydrolysed Chicken Protein increases the final weight of Nile Tilapias in various stages of fishes lives. In the post-larvae phase, there was 23% increase in the final weight and in the fingerling phase, the increase is 35%.

Connected to these results of benefits in tilapias health and metabolism, is the food conversion, that plays an important role when it comes to the producers choosing the best formulation to the farm animals’ diet.

The food conversion theme pertains to the cost-benefit that the ingredient generates in the nutrition and health of the animal over the investiment. Being the area that occupy more investments in the farming, the nutrition needs to deliver more benefits than costs.

And precisely this is also an importante point in the BRF Ingredients formulations, since the benefits provided to the animal nutrition are bigger than their costs, since BioActio PHF promotes a better nutritional utilization for the tilapias.

In this regard, tilapias in the fingerling phase that have the BioActio Health & Performance Hydrolysed Chicken Protein included in their diet presente a improvement of 39% in the food conversion.

Consequently, besides all the mentioned benefits, with the inclusion of BioActio, producers start generating tilapias with high added value and maximum performance, due to the rise of 11% of the filet income and 5% gain on the fishes final weight.

Learn more about the BRF Ingredients hydrolysed in the aqua nutrition: consult one of our experts: Contato - BRF Ingredients

References

[1] FAO - Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. Rome, 2016. Disponível em: https://www.fao.org/3/i6030e/i6030e.pdf. Acesso: janeiro de 2023.

[2] Carvalho Filho, J. Conheça os números da produção aquícola de 2015. Revista Panorama da AQÜICULTURA. Disponível em IBGE: Conheça os números da produção aquícola de 2015 | Revista Panorama da Aqüicultura (panoramadaaquicultura.com.br). Acesso: janeiro de 2023.

[3] Anuário Peixe BR da Piscicultura 2022: https://www.peixebr.com.br/anuario2022/

[4] Rocha, J. D. M. Proteína hidrolisada de frango para tilápia do Nilo: digestibilidade e desempenho produtivo 2018. Disponível em: TEDE: Proteína hidrolisada de frango para tilápia do Nilo: digestibilidade e desempenho produtivo (unioeste.br). Acesso: janeiro de 2023.

[5] SOARES, M. Avaliação de hidrolisados proteicos de subprodutos de frango e suíno na nutrição do camarão-branco-do-pacífico. Tese (Doutorado em Aquicultura) – Centro de Ciências Agrárias da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Florianópolis, pp. 99. 2019. Disponível em: https://repositorio.ufsc.br/bitstream/handle/123456789/215699/PAQI0572-T.pdf?sequence=-1&isAllowed=y. Acesso: janeiro de 2023.

[6] MORA, L., REIG, M., TOLDRÁ, F. (2016) Bioactive peptides generated from meat industry by-products. Food Research International, v.65, p.344-349.

[7] Mullen et al. (2017), MULLEN, A. M., ÁLVAREZ, C., ZEUGOLIS, D. I., HENCHION, M., O'NEILL, E., DRUMMOND, L. (2017) Alternative uses for co-products: Harnessing the potential of valuable compounds from meat processing chains. Meat Science, v.132, p.90-98.