Award honors development of EnzoMeal™ sustainable food source for farm-raised fish

The Ohio Soybean Council (OSC) has received an R&D 100 Special Recognition Award for developing EnzoMeal™, an effective and sustainable food source for farm-raised fish. The 2017 Gold Special Recognition Award—the highest level of this prestigious award for invention and innovation—was presented in the Corporate Social Responsibility category. OSC was among the 100 winners announced November 17 during a black-tie awards ceremony in Orlando, Florida.

An advanced soybean-based fish feed, EnzoMeal addresses a key impediment to widespread expansion of aquaculture (“fish farming”), the fastest-growing sector of food production. Standard fish meal’s primary ingredients—wild fish and shrimp—are rapidly dwindling resources. However, conventional soybean meal, when used at high levels in producing fish feed, contains carbohydrates that fish cannot easily digest. OSC and its research partner, Battelle, developed a technology that removes nondigestible carbohydrates and increases crude proteins in the soybean meal, resolving the challenges that to date have limited a high level of soybean use as a substitute fish feed protein.

“OSC is honored to receive the R&D 100 award,” said Nathan Eckel, soybean farmer and chair of the OSC Research Committee. “But we are particularly proud to have contributed to profitable and sustainable fish farming, presenting an opportunity to meet the escalating global demand for food.”

The Gold Award is the eighth R&D 100 Award presented to OSC since 2002.

For more information about this technology, OSC’s role in its development, and/or licensing, please contact Mr. Barry McGraw, Director, Ohio Soybean Council (bmcgraw@soyohio.org), or Dr. Bhima Vijayendran, Redwood Innovations (bhima@redwdinnov.com).