SBIR-STTR Award

The Alaskan fishing industry produces over one million metric tons of by-product and waste annually. Rural coastal Alaska communities have been using the grind and dump method for decades. There is an opportunity to expand existing onshore processing in rural coastal communities and provide additional economic value from fish waste and, simultaneously, reducing or eliminating the impact of current fish waste disposal practices on the local community. OBJECTIVES: Scientific Fishery Systems, Inc. (SciFish) has formed a team that will develop a production plan for storing and processing fish waste, predominantly from salmon, into fish meal and fish oil. Initially the project will focus on methods of reliable storage of fish waste coupled with an appropriately sized processing capability for sustained processing throughout the winter months to provide stable employment and reduce capital equipment costs. Cordova Alaska will serve as the host for a pilot project demonstrating the conversion of fish waste to fish meal and fish oil. The fish oil will be subsequently converted into biodiesel that will be used to fuel the fish meal and fish oil production facility, resulting in a cost-effective fish meal production plant. Cordova has an abundance of salmon each summer that will be stored, stabilized, and processed throughout the winter months in a facility that is scaled to match the production throughput of annual harvests. A successful pilot effort in Cordova will then be replicated in other rural coastal Alaskan communities, such as Sitka, Kodiak, Valdez, Seward, Dillingham, and Homer. APPROACH: SciFish has formulated a set of six tasks to achieve the Phase I objectives. Task 1: Concept of Operations. The purpose of this task is to define how the fish waste will be captured, stored, processed, marketed, and sold. To accomplish this task we will clearly define what resources will be needed to achieve a pilot production capability during Phase II. The emphasis of this task is to identify potential pitfalls, including regulatory and local community issues and the mitigation strategies for overcoming potential challenges. Task 2: Fish Waste Capture. The purpose of this task is to refine the estimates of fish waste that is available for fish meal/oil processing, determine the cost of acquisition for the waste, identify how the waste will be stored, explore how the waste can be stabilized for long-term storage to reduce the capital requirements for processing equipment, identify potential storage locations, and delineate the costs associated with the storage and stabilization. Task 3: System Design. The purpose of this task is to identify the processing plant components that will be needed to produce fish meal/oil in a pilot program during Phase II. Fish meal and fish oil vendors will be evaluated, processing throughput requirements will be established from the projected amounts of available waste, and the costs associated with the equipment, both capital acquisition and operations, will be established. Task 4: Pilot Deployment Plan. The purpose of this task is to create the pilot deployment plan. To accomplish this task we will combine the information produced from the first three tasks into a strategy for pilot production during Phase II. The plan will outline what resources need to be in place and when to accomplish a Phase II demonstration. Site preparation, storage, production, training, marketing, and sales will be incorporated into the plan. At the conclusion of this task we will have a guide that can be replicated by other coastal communities for fish waste production on a similar scale. Task 5: Feasibility Analysis. The purpose of this task is to refine the preliminary feasibility analysis that was conducted earlier in this proposal to confirm the financial viability of fish meal/oil production for coastal communities. A summary review of other possible products will also be examined as follow-on efforts that would allow greater value to be extracted from the waste. At the conclusion of this task we will have a business (commercialization) plan that will be suitable for seeking additional financial support that would allow the pilot program to expand to full-scale production beyond Phase II. Task 6: Technology Transfer. The purpose of this task to establish a dialogue with the USDA SBIR program officer. To accomplish this task, SciFish will provide a mid-term report, a final report, and a commercialization plan

The Alaskan fishing industry produces over one million metric tons of by-product and waste annually. Rural coastal Alaska communities have been using the grind and dump method for decades. There is an opportunity to expand existing onshore processing in rural coastal communities and provide additional economic value from fish waste and, simultaneously, reducing or eliminating the impact of current fish waste disposal practices on the local community. There are more than 200 fish processing plants in Alaska, however, fish waste processing occurs at only ten of largest shore-based plants that extract fish meal and fish oil for use as aquaculture feed ingredients for fish and shrimp and as livestock and poultry feed ingredients. These waste processing facilities process 400 metric ton (400 MT) of waste per day, or more. The cost for these plants is several million dollars, they require a tremendous volume of fish that is only available at a small number of ports, and they are expensive to operate. In addition, the fish processing plants with waste recovery facilities focus the majority of their processing on Pollock and Cod, with only a fraction of their throughput dedicated to salmon. The majority of the smaller processing plants are dominated by the seasonal salmon processing, which makes the economics of these ventures more difficult. For years there has been a need to develop fish waste processing equipment that is significantly smaller and less expensive than current systems, opening up the opportunity for more than 100 smaller seafood processing plants to extract greater value from their product. Despite many feasibility analyses that have been conducted over the past twenty years, affordable fish waste processing equipment with a small footprint has not been introduced and demonstrated that can serve these smaller rural coastal processors because of a combination of high risk and lack of capital. Recently, the prices for the two primary salmon byproducts, meal and oil, have increased dramatically because the marketplace places a premium on human-grade salmon oil and salmon meal. The demand for Wild Alaskan Salmon meal and oil has changed the economic potential for processing salmon waste at lower volumes at the smaller scale seafood processing plants that serve rural coastal Alaska. OBJECTIVES: During Phase I, Scientific Fishery Systems, Inc. (SciFish) developed a plan that is economically viable for production of salmon waste at 25 MT per day, a sixteenth of the capacity of the current fish meal/oil production facilities currently in place in Alaska. The concept of operations focuses on retaining food-grade processing of fish waste, which is not retained with the existing plants, hence limiting their markets to animal feed. The following technical objectives shall be address during Phase II: Install and operate a 25 MT fish meal/oil plant in Cordova Alaska for two consecutive salmon seasons. Demonstrate that the quality of these products substantiates a premium price that justifies the capital investment needed for future systems. Develop an expansion plan that will allow the process developed and demonstrated in Cordova to be applied at other similar size seafood processing plants across Alaska. APPROACH: SciFish has formulated a set of seven tasks to achieve the Phase II objectives. These tasks include the following: Task 1: Plant Installation The purpose of this task is to install the 25 MT fish meal/oil plant defined during Phase I and make the system operationally ready for operations during the salmon season. Task 2: Plant Operations - Season 1 The purpose of this task is to operate the fish meal/oil plant for an entire salmon season - May 15, 2010 to September 15, 2010. Task 3: Evaluate Plant Performance The purpose of this task is to evaluate the performance of the meal/plant operation during the first season and determine areas where improvements can be made. Task 4: Refine/Modify Plant & Operations The purpose of this task is to identify areas within the existing fish meal/oil plant where further refinements could be made both to the plant and its operations that would result in improvements to the product, efficiencies in the processes, and ultimately increases in the economic feasibility this and future projects. Task 5: Plant Operations - Season 2 The purpose of this task is to operate the fish meal/oil plant for a second entire salmon season - May 15, 2011 to September 15, 2011. Task 6: Expansion Plan The purpose of this task is to begin the process of expanding the number of 25 MT meal/oil plants to other locations across Alaska. Task 7: Reporting The purpose of this task is to report the progress of this project on a regular basis throughout the duration of Phase II