Northfin food

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Great info RD, much appreciated...... and much reading to do. I expect to find many Western entities using Naturox, if nothing else to supply the cat/dog food and human "organic" market (ie....chicken fed feed containing artificial preservatives cannot be declared "organic", "organic" peaches can be preserved with Naturox but not EQ, BHA, BHT, etc.....). I am surprised to see either Chile or Peru using Naturox The combined effects of market demand and (mostly) government regulations appear to be forcing things.

I would like to come across a yearly comparison of how much fish meal is being shipped using EQ vs BHA/BHT vs Naturox (or one of the other mixed tocopherol based products).
 
Market demand has been the real driving force, due to dog & cat owners, and the companies supplying food to those consumers. The anti EQ crowd began forming back in the 90's, and in the past 15 yrs or so have really been pushing hard. So hard that I would imagine that it began seriously affecting the bottom line of manufacturers, and they were pretty much forced to change, or continue to lose customers. Many of those dog customers switched to raw, as have many other consumers, just to avoid EQ, excessive use of grains, etc. Today all of the premium brands of commercial dog/cat kibble have switched to natural preservatives, and will state those preservatives on their labels, and their websites. They are also open to enquiries from consumers. Add to that the organic farmers, and a new "au natural" market was created.

This all started many-many years before the EU considered any type of EQ ban, or implementing new EQ regulations. And the concern with the EU union has mostly been with humans, and the livestock that humans consume, that have been fed these preservatives. Not so much pet food, and certainly not pet fish food. No one ever mentions pet fish in these govt. discussions or papers. lol

At this point, pet fish owners don't have the same kind of driving force, and overall aren't nearly as well informed, or vocal, as dog/cat owners. Perhaps this will be the start, and other fish food manufacturers will indeed follow over time. I guess only time will tell.
 
Link to NLS lab report from Nov 2016, part of their routine testing. More to follow by the sounds of things.

http://nlsfishfood.com/nlspreservatives_results01/

Just thought I would toss that out as some related reading while everyone is waiting on Northfin's EQ investigation to wrap up. lol
 
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Officially retired the last of my NF may continue to mix in the veggie formula until is depleted. Replaced the NF carnivore with nls megafish
 
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NLS is definitely winning the PR war... crickets from Northfin... or at least, I haven't seen anything from them.
 
The question of whether all pellet/flake foods on the market would turn out to be above FDA limits seems to have been answered...
 
Yes, I believe that has indeed been answered. If kmuda posts any follow up lab reports on other brands I believe that he will find similar results. (less than 150 ppm EQ)

On another note, on kmuda's forum there was a post by a rep that works within the krill industry, and I felt that it was worth repeating here. This non EQ krill is what will end up in NLS formulas - not so sure about NF, seeing as they aren't talking.


..................................

"Full Disclosure, I work with the largest producer of krill-derived products in the world. At a recent Trade Show I was asked to chime in on the Ethoxyquin issue and whether or not there is actually krill meal available that is properly preservative free.

I can say, definitively, that there is krill meal produced that is preservative-free. The issue with preservatives in fish meal has most to do with the cubic volume of the product being shipped. Fish meal, and krill meal, are highly oxididizable and therefore dangerous to be shipping in an enclosed space like the hold of a freighter. Ethoxyquin is a supremely effective anti-oxidant and well indicated in feeds destined for fish.

Krill Meal behaves differently than fish meal in that the fat is not easily separated from the protein...where fish meal can hover at 6% most krill meal has fat levels over 25%. This is due to the peculiar nature of the Omega3's in krill. While there are Ethoxyquin alternatives, none immediately presents as effective...particular for krill meal. It is likely that given the regulatory trend, producers will move to a blend of some sort or, ideally,utilize larger scale vacuum packers with nitrogen flushing. This however, is very, very expensive.

Our company has been producing a preservative-free krill meal for some time. This product is packaged in 25kg bags which are vacuum packed...the naturally occuring Astaxanthin in the meal provides stability for up to 2 years. This particular meal has undergone an additional sieving process to reduce the shell volume (and thus the flouride levels) making it suitable for mammalian diets.

I am not aware of any other krill producer who offers non-ethoxyquin preserved product in meal form. The only exception being product that has been deep frozen prepped for oil extraction. This type of meal is very, very expensive given the front-loaded cost of said preservation. This is not to say that there aren't some kg's of natural krill meal out there. However, given that the second biggest producer has just gone bankrupt (Olympic/Rimfrost) and two of the other 9 boats previously fishing for Antarctic Krill have been docked, it is unlikely.

For reference, preservative-free krill meal is roughly 2x the cost of ethoxyquin treated product."
 
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