You may know about essential amino acids, the ones that your body can not produce itself and have to come from the food you eat. But essential fatty acids? Indeed, some long-chain fatty acids, especially the polyunsaturated ones have to come from outside as well. And the most well known ones are the Omega-3 fatty acids.
You may know about essential amino acids, the ones that your body can not produce itself and have to come from the food you eat. But essential fatty acids?
Indeed, some long-chain fatty acids, especially the polyunsaturated ones have to come from outside as well. And the most well known ones are the Omega-3 fatty acids. (That little dash between the omega and the 3 is not a connector, but a minus-sign. We should be talking therefore about "omega minus 3 fatty acids". For an explanation click here. While you are at it, you may want to read up on the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.) The most widely available dietary source is oily fish, such as salmon, herring, mackerel, anchovies,and sardines. But overfishing makes fish farming necessary; especially salmon is being farmed on a huge scale. But these fish are not a primary source of omega-3 either for they don't produce these acids just as little as we do. They get it from little fish and krill (2.6 kg/kg salmon), who in turn get it from the primary source: algae.
So why not "cut out the middle man and go straight to the source"? DSM and Evonik will do just that and have set up a 50/50 joint venture under the name Veramaris, to produce omega-3 fatty acids from algae (Schizochytrium). They claim that 1 kg of their algal oil can replace 60 kg wild catch fish. That makes growing salmon a lot more sustainable.
DSM’s expertise is in the cultivation of marine organisms including algae and long-established biotechnology capabilities in development and operations, whilst Evonik’s focus has been on developing industrial biotechnology processes and operating competitively large-scale manufacturing sites for fermentative amino acids.
Worldwide fish oil production is approximately one million metric tons per year. Evonik and DSM aim at 15% of this market with their algal oil as a sustainable non-fish alternative.