Spanish biotech company gets EU funding to develop olive additive for salmon

A programme that’ll introduce olive’s healing properties to salmon will begin in January 2019.

The AQUOLIVE project from Madrid-based biotech company, Natac, has been selected by the European Commission to receive funding in the latest round of the H2020 SME Instrument programme call. The two year programme has a budget of €2.5M and will set out to improve aquaculture sustainability and salmon production performance in Europe.

The two year programme has a budget of €2.5M.

Olives
“Considering the competitiveness of this call, we feel really optimistic about it potential outcomes for our company and for the sector,” said José M Pinilla, Natac’s R&D Project Manager in an email to SalmonBusiness. The EUR programme was highly competitive with only 3 out of every 100 applicant companies successful funded.

The base raw material for AQUOLIVE production comes from olive tree biomass, a key industry in southern Europe, which the company envisage being potentially boosted by the project.

“The product is obtained from olive biomass produced in the olive oil industry, in a circular economy and bio-economical scenario. It’s based in the valorisation of olive industrial biomass,” explained Pinilla.

And it appears the industry are curious about if olive’ well documented anti-oxidant properties will translate to salmon: “We have received up to 10 letters of commitment from different entities (aquaculture companies, aquaculture associations, feed producers) including some of the main salmon feed producers” added Pinilla.

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