Soluble Proteins and Peptides

November 6, 2009

Processing Concepts Applied to the Krill Industry.
Feed or Food?
Market Research (2007- 2008, Pub. 2009).

There is a large market available for peptides in general and krill solubles’ and peptides in particular, being krill peptides’ manufactured from whole animal, captured on clean waters and freshly processed for uses either on animal, human and/or vegetable end markets. Onboard processing is feasible subject to how much value added will be included on the end product through the processing itself; pure evaporator or evaporation plus membranes, for example. Evaporation and membranes grant a different and high-value adding concept to the business. On a 6-year evaluation time, the sole evaporation solution yields a Net Present Value (NPV) of US$14 Million versus US$44 Million for krill meal extracts only (soluble & peptides) or US$42 Million using a combination of soluble and extra krill meal yield processing concept. This last option is one of our preferred solutions as it gives time to the operator to build the peptide & soluble market while at the same time it profits from higher krill meal yields. Results are in line with Tharos’ chemical analysis of krill stick water and protein content in relation to the recovering process. Special attention was put on low molecular weight protein or peptides (< 1000 Da[1]) which have important properties as a bioactive, improving animal health and growth, palatability and flavor enhancement on human and animal food and feeds, respectively. Global markets were analyzed leading agriculture and aqua-feeds followed by human market niche. Prices detected range from US$3.8 up to US$12 per kilo with average depending on type of end-product. On the tough decision about what type of evaporation solution to use on-board (and/or filtration, etc) Tharos’ suggestion has been outlined on this report.