Farmed tilapia.

Skretting contributes to tilapia aquaculture growth

Tilapia aquaculture output has almost tripled in Egypt since 2005. Currently, this species harvests reach almost 900,000 annual tonnes and represent 64 per cent of the country's total aquaculture production, which is 1.4 million tonnes. Egypt has become the sixth largest aquaculture producer in the world, exceeding that of the salmonid farming giants of Norway (seventh-placed) and Chile (eighth-placed).

The world's leading aquaculture feed producer Skretting states that its arrival to the country and the establishment of Skretting Egypt in 2008 have played a significant role to boost this aquaculture growth. 

“Going back only as far as 2005, Egypt’s total aquaculture production stood at a modest 500,000 tonnes, so you can see how far it has come. Our role as the market leader is to support Egyptian farmers by helping them to maximise farm productivity. This is being accomplished by our sales and technical support team. We are also leveraging Egypt’s aquaculture industry through the excellent cooperative relationships we have established with international and national NGOs,” says Ayman Rostom, General Manager Skretting Egypt. 

From Skretting, it has been pointed out that to support the sector’s rapid growth, there has been a considerable increase in the number of local fish feed plants supplying the market but the establishment of its local company Skretting Egypt in 2008 was what brought the importance of high-quality diets to the attention of the country’s fish farmers.

“Our number-one priority throughout the past 10 years has been to maintain a very close relationship with all the fish farmers in Egypt. This commitment is part of our DNA and has undoubtedly brought a lot of success to Egyptian aquaculture. The farmers confide in us and trust us to always work in their best interests as they continue to advance,” says Salah Abd El Kader, Sales & Technical Support Manager at Skretting Egypt.

At the start of this year, Skretting Egypt launched a new product - Nutra for tilapia - to the local market. The Nutra range consists of high-performance starter diets supporting first-feeding fry by providing the specific nutrients and right particle size for each life stage – from egg to fingerling. Providing high survival rates and robust young fish, these specialised feeds will contribute to the improved performance of hatcheries in Egypt and beyond. In fact, Nutra is already on its way from Egypt to Kenya, Uganda, Cote d'Ivoire and Mali.

The introduction of Nutra was recently followed by Protec for tilapia, a new functional diet especially designed to help support tilapia and enhance their ability to cope with during challenging situations, including the hot summer seasons.

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Essentially, Protec Tilapia helps to support the natural defences of the fish, it supports the immune system and it optimises the balance between fish, microbes and environment.

The two diets are the result of a series of comprehensive trials across multiple global locations coordinated by researchers at Skretting Aquaculture Research Centre (ARC), and both have been welcomed by Skretting Egypt’s customers.

Egyptian tilapia farmer Beshir Atteia states: “Using Protec in the middle of summer gives the farmers starting with 1 gram fry the opportunity to reach the local marketable size in a very reasonable time frame. This is because it supports tilapia; helping them to overcome the high temperature season. It stabilises the feed intake, which means we don’t have to stop feeding during these periods.”

Skretting Egypt is ideally positioned to export its diets throughout Africa, meaning these and other innovations will support the evolution of the continent’s aquaculture sector and also cement tilapia’s position as an essential food product. With the African population now at more than 1.2 billion people and fish consumption growing in many regions, Skretting will continue to live up to its group-wide mission of ‘Feeding the Future’.

Tilapia is in fact produced by more countries than any other fish species. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), total world production of Nile tilapia (the most important tilapia species) is now in excess of 4.2 million tonnes, making it the second-most cultured finfish in all of aquaculture behind carp.

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