Tímarit Verkfræðingafélags Íslands - 01.12.1967, Page 294

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TÍMARIT VFI 1967
produced under such excellent sanitary condi-
tions from such extremely fresh raw material
that it was very pleasant to consume per se,
which I did. I have no doubt that eventually, a
truly sanitary, wholesome and stable high-
quality fishmeal can be produced that might
be suitable for human consumption. This would,
of course, be a much more inexpensive product
and might have a certain market appeal that a
completely bland product woud nolt have, in
certain parts of Africa and Asia, for instance,
where a strong taste is mandatory. At the
moment, however, I feel that great caution must
be exercised in order to prevent all kinds of
products from appearing on the market, products
that might contain polymerized and rancid oils
which would not only give a negative market
image to the product in many countries but
would also reduce the nutritive value of the
supplement. It is extremely doubtful whether
such a product could be safely fed to very
young children and expectant mothers who, as
you know, are much more sensitive than other
segments of population to a number of nutri-
tional imbalances.
Páll Ólafsson:
I wish to thank Dr. Pariser for his interesting
lecture. As far as I can see the production of
fish protein concentrate or fish flour for human
consumption is making rapid development
through the effort of the Bureau of Commercial
Fisheries in College Park, Maryland, under the
leadership of Dr. Pariser.
We certainly look forward to following this
development and seeing the plant in operation,
producing fish protein concentrate on an
industrial scale.
As you have heard the method to be used
depends on the direct extraction of fresh fish,
viz. hake, with isopropylalcohol and drying,
screening and grinding of the product.
Considerable experimental work has been done
on the production of fish flour in the last 10-20
years.
Industrial production of fish flour for human
consumption from fish meal has been attempted
in Morocco, Peru and South Africa but in all
these countries it has been given up due to
marketing difficulties and perhaps also technical
difficulties.
Some companies may be ready for production
by the Vio-Bin process in the U.S.A., now when
the Food and Drug Administration has given its
sanction and set the specifications, but I do not
know the situation.
In Sweden the Astra plant is said to be pro-
ducing fish flour and it might interest the audi-
ence to have some of the information about
solvent extraction of fish meal we gathered at
the meeting of the Scientific Committee of the
International Association of Fish Meal Manu-
facturers held in Aberdeen in April.
The production of fish flour was discussed to
some extent. Astra’s plant in Sweden was speci-
ally mentioned as it has been much advertised
in the newspapers and the technical press
recently.
It was not disclosed how big the production
is nor whether the product is on the market
although I enquired specially about this last
point.
The flour is mostly used as feeding stuff for
animals and mink. The price was said to be 1.50-
2.00 Swedish crowns for each kilogram of it.
The price for fish flour for human consump-
tion was said to be 2.50-3.00 Swedish crowns
per kilo.
Astra was said to have got one million Swedish
crowns from the Swedish government as a sub-
sidy when it started its experiments.
One of the meal producers told the meeting
that he did sell about 20 tons of steam dried
fish meal each month to Astra.
About the method used by Astra it was consi-
dered that the solvent is isopropylalcohol, which
is the same substance as the Americans intend
to use in the production of fish protein concen-
trate from fresh fish for human consumption.
The speaker had it confirmed by a Norwegian
who was there that a solvent extraction plant
is to be erected in Norway for the production
of herring meal with less than 1% fat content.
The plan is to produce up to 12.000 tons of
such meal per year.
One of the Norwegians said that a Danish
fish meal merchant had informed him that the
price for such meal would be 1.60 Danish
crowns per kilo. The price was mentioned last
year.
The machinery for the solvent extraction plant
will be German, probably from Rud. A. Hart-
man. The solvent used will be hexane.
The above mentioned information about prices
etc. should be treated with caution as it is
rather difficult to get reliable information about
Astra in spite of much advertising information.