Copra cake, a by-product of the coconut oil industry of the Philippines was subjected to a solid state fermentation process using technology developed by Biotech of UP Los Baños in order to enhance the protein content of copra meal to about 45% that is comparable to soybean meal. This processed product is known as protein enriched copra meal which was termed as PECM.
PECM was successfully incorporated in finfish and shrimp diets at 200kg/ton and 100kg/ton respectively and was used in a commercial scale culture of shrimp, tilapia and milkfish. Incorporating 200kg of PECM per ton of finfish diet and 100kg in shrimp feed lowers the feed cost by 3.9% (PhP 30) and 0.4% (PhP 5) respectively compared to the existing commercial feeds in the market.
