How To Start Fish Feed Manufacturing Business
With a growing global population and increasing popularity of fish consumption, the demand for fish and its by-products continues to rise. At the same time, the booming aquaculture industry has led to a corresponding surge in demand for high-quality fish feeds. As a key input for aquaculture, the market for fish feed is expanding with the expansion of the aquaculture industry.
Small-scale fish feed pellet plants offer greater flexibility in meeting local or specific market demands. For investors, this not only means the ability to meet market demand more precisely, but also higher profit potential.
6 Steps For Starting a Fish Feed Production Business
Feed Variety Innovation
The fish feed processing industry has developed relatively maturely, and small-scale enterprises often have difficulty in meeting the needs of large-scale aquaculture enterprises in terms of scale. Therefore, investors need to study feed varieties in depth. At present, the domestic pet fish feed market is gradually heating up, the production of pellet feed and expanded feed is a very profitable investment direction. Innovative feed varieties can not only meet the nutritional needs of different fish, but also open up new market areas.
Choice Of Location
For feed processing plant, geographic location is crucial. In well-developed areas, feed processing plants have the convenience of both transportation and markets. In contrast, operating in remote rural areas presents many challenges. Choosing a location with good transportation can reduce transportation costs and increase the competitiveness of your products in the market.
Raw Material Selection
Raw materials are a key issue that can be easily overlooked and are directly related to product quality, cost and ultimately profitability. Ensuring a quality supply of raw materials is the basis for producing high-quality fish feed. Investors should establish long-term cooperative relationships with reliable suppliers and strictly control the quality of raw materials to ensure product quality from the source.
Technical Input
The processing of fish feed is an element that must be carefully considered. Having basic knowledge of nutrition helps ensure the quality of feed. Advanced production technology and equipment can improve production efficiency and reduce production costs, while ensuring a balanced nutritional composition of the feed. Continuously investing in technology research and development is an important way to enhance the competitiveness of the enterprise.
Planning Of Fixed Assets
Fixed assets such as fish feed pellet mill, plant, warehouse and transportation tools need to be rationally arranged for investment. Investors should choose suitable equipment and sites according to the scale of production and market demand to ensure that the investment in fixed assets can bring maximum economic benefits.
Establishment Of Diversified Sales Channels
Through means such as network publicity and advertising promotion, the sales market of fish feed pellet products can be effectively opened. In addition, it can also establish cooperative relationships with aquaculture enterprises and dealers to expand sales channels. Diversified sales channels can improve the market coverage of products and increase sales.
Fish Feed Pellets Manufacturing Technology
Raw Material Selection
When selecting raw materials for fish feed processing, it is necessary to ensure that the final product has good stability in water. The main nutrient is starch, with sinking fish feeds having a starch content of 10% – 15% and floating fish feeds having a starch content of more than 20%, typically with a starch content of between 5% – 60%. Carbohydrates act as emulsifiers, suspending agents and binders in the extrusion of fish feed pellets.
Raw Material Milling
The comminution process mainly involves grinding the raw material to the required particle size. For fish feed production of 150 – 700 kg/hour, hammer blade mills are usually used, while for production of 1 – 10 tons/hour, teardrop mills are mostly used. Large aquafeed producers generally use a secondary grinding process, i.e. conventional grinding followed by fine grinding.
Raw Material Mixing
This process is crucial in fish feed production. The physical properties of raw materials determine the speed of the mixing process. When adding various raw materials to the mixer, it is best to add some larger raw materials first and some smaller ones last, such as premixes of minerals, vitamins and drugs. The mixture is usually allowed to contain more than 10% liquid. Before adding liquids or oils, make sure that the dry ingredients in the mixer are well mixed (dry mix). After spraying the liquid or oil on the dry mix, it will need to be mixed again (wet mix). However, some fish feeds may require wet ingredients.
Extrusion Molding
The design of the pelletizing process and the selection of related equipment are important factors that affect the quality of aquafeeds. We have both dry and wet fish feed extruders for pelletizing. Wet extruders require a conditioner and steam boiler, while dry fish feed machines do not. The former is suitable for large fish feed pellet mills, while the latter is more suitable for small and medium-sized feed pellet users or fish feed pellet mills. By adjusting different parameters, the extruder can produce feeds with different buoyancy, sinking speed and humidity to suit the feed needs of various aquatic animals.
Pellet Drying
Our mesh belt dryer is a continuous convection dryer. Pellets molded by the extruder are stacked in layers on a wire mesh or perforated plate conveyor belt and pass continuously through the drying chamber. During this process, drying air repeatedly passes through the product layers until the pellets reach an optimum moisture content and leave the dryer. If choosing a wet fish feeder, we recommend a gas based pellet dryer.
Pellet Coating/Coating
To give fish feed pellets a better odor and taste, oil can be sprayed onto the surface of the fish feed pellets coming out of the dryer using an oil sprayer. The atomized oil is sprayed on the surface of the pellets at high speed and the excess oil can be recovered through filtration.
Pellet Cooling
After spraying, the fish feed pellets are conveyed to a counterflow cooler for cooling. The counterflow cooler has the advantages of small air volume, high automation, small footprint, and low energy consumption when handling floating fish feed pellets.
Pellet Packaging
In order to make the finished pellets easy to store, transport and attract customers, proper packaging is required. Our electronic weighing packaging machine can automatically complete the operations of pellet bagging, weighing, conveying and sealing, which greatly saves manpower and time and meets the needs of mass production. The machine can also be equipped with automatic coding, automatic bag sewing and automatic thread cutting.
Raw Materials For Fish Feed Production
Protein
Protein is an important nutrient for fish and shrimp, and is an important part of body cells, tissues and organs. Normal growth of fish requires that the feed contains enough protein that is easily digested and absorbed, as well as the right proportion of various amino acids. When fish are deficient in sufficient protein, it leads to slow growth and reduced body immunity.
Fats
Fats, especially essential fatty acids, are important regulators of the immune response in fish and shrimp. Adding essential fatty acids to the feed can improve the humoral and cellular immunity of the animal body, promote the production of cellular immune factors, have an important effect on the proliferation of mitosis-stimulated lymphocytes, and enhance the phagocytosis of macrophages.
Vitamins
Vitamins are essential nutrients for normal growth and maintenance of normal physiological functions in fish and shrimp. Their main function is to act as antioxidants, protecting fat-soluble cell membranes and unsaturated fatty acids from oxidation. Vitamins are essential for maintaining the normal function of the immune system of fish and shrimp.
Mineral Elements
Mineral elements such as iron, selenium, copper and zinc are very important in the disease resistance and immune response of fish and shrimp, and feeds should not be deficient in these elements. They are involved in a variety of physiological and biochemical processes in the body of fish and shrimp, and play a key role in the healthy growth of fish and shrimp.
Optimize The Quality Of Fish Feed
Fish pellet feeds are made from a mixture of various active substances (e.g. plants, animals, fats, oils, yeasts and other ingredients) required for fish growth. Of course, the quality of fish feed pellets made may vary considerably if different products are used.
1. Formulation: When choosing the formulation of a fish pellet feed, it is important to first consider the dietary habits and major nutritional requirements of the fish being cultured. Secondly, it is important to understand the nutritional composition of the various feed ingredients and their balance with each other, as well as the digestibility of these nutrients. Therefore, when matching fish pellet feeds, attention should be paid to the combination of various feed ingredients. Because various feed ingredients have their own characteristics and different nutritional values. As far as protein content is concerned, animal feed pellets are usually higher than plant feed pellets.
2. Size: The size of pellets varies according to the different species of fish and the different needs of fish from small to different growth stages. Large fish are fed with large pellets and small fish with small pellets, all of which are specially designed and produced for aquaculture.
3. Hardness, softness and moisture content: These factors have a significant impact on the quality of fish feeds. Suitable hardness and softness increase the feeding rate of fish, while proper moisture content helps in storage and transportation of feeds.
Conclusion
Launching a fish feed production business requires comprehensive consideration of several aspects, including innovation of feed varieties, selection of geographic location, control of raw materials, investment in technology, planning of fixed assets, and expansion of sales channels. At the same time, understanding the fish feed production process, raw material composition and quality optimization factors, and choosing a pelletizing machine reasonably are the keys to ensure the success of the business.
The fish feed production industry has a promising future, and despite some challenges, it is an area of opportunity for prepared investors. We hope that aspiring entrepreneurs in this industry will make the most of this information and take the first courageous step to succeed in the fish feed production business.
