草原Aquatech扩展

Prairie AquaTech, founded in Brookings, SD, in 2012 will be building in Volga, SD, about five miles west of Brookings and next to one of its partners: South Dakota Soybean Processors.

Other partners vital to the $60 million project and its continued success include South Dakota State University and the Brookings Economic Development Corporation.

“For projects of this magnitude, it really takes a village to make it happen,” says Mark Luecke, managing director and CEO of Prairie AquaTech, which makes a protein-rich ingredient used in fish feed.

He noted that the company’s products came about out of research at South Dakota State University College of Agriculture and Biological Sciences.

Luecke称Prairie Aquatech是一种非常独特的设施，该设施使用了“我们从事SDSU在小瓶中所做的工作的大型发酵罐，现在我们将其扩展到了这些大型发酵罐中。”

“Essentially what we’re doing is fermenting soybean meal,” he explains. "We buy soybean meal from South Dakota Soybean Processors in Volga. They have a plant down in Miller that produces non-genetically modified meal.

“We ferment that. And on site, we also have a small feed mill. That allows us to take our ingredients and mix them with other ingredients and pelletize that into a fish feed.” That feed, while not the finished product it produces, can then be used to test AquaTech’s protein-rich ingredient to ensure its compatability as a vital component of a final fish-feed product.

Read the full reporthere.