Evaluation of differently processed soybean meal products as ingredients in practical diets for Pacific white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei

Abstract

Numerous advanced soybean meal (SBM) products are available in the market today, which were produced through modified or improved methodologies from the traditional solvent extraction procedure, to reduce or eliminate the antinutritional factors and improve bioavailability of nutrients. Despite the higher manufacturing cost, inclusion levels of these new SBM products into fish feed formulations can still be limited due to the secondary quality characteristics caused during processing. Hence, this study was designed to evaluate the effect of differently processed SBM, on growth performances of pacific white shrimps (Litopenaeus vannamei). The growth trial was conducted with test diets formulated with two sources of solvent‐extracted (SESBM44 and SESBM49), enzyme‐treated (ETSBM), fermented SBM (FSBM) and alcohol‐extracted soy protein concentrate (SPC) as the primary protein source (650 g/kg). As per the statistical analysis, diets incorporated with SESBM44, SESBM49 and ETSBM yielded a significantly higher growth performance and lower FCR. Results of this study infer that the traditional solvent‐extracted SBM perform equally well as enzyme‐treated SBM, whereas reduced performances of the shrimp offered fermented SBM and alcohol‐extracted soy protein concentrate might be due to reduced nutrient digestibility, palatability or other nutrient shifts caused by processing.