With help from a Gulf Coast Community Foundation grant, the Healthy Earth-Gulf Coast: Sustainable Seafood System team is to research how mullet, many parts of which are currently underused or discarded, can be utilised as a value added product.

Seth Cripe, founder of Anna Maria Fish Co, which makes and sells bottarga, the sun-cured roe of gray-striped mullet, is keen to see the rest of the fish used to produce fish oil, feed and other products from fish remnants after the roe is extracted.

Healthy Earth already conducts research at the Mote Marine Laboratory, where scientists are looking into mullet products as fish feed or an additive to fish meal.

Healthy Earth acquired Mote\'s sturgeon operation and, if mullet fish feed is a success, tremendous savings could be on the cards for Healthy Earth and other businesses.

\"We spend about half a million a year on fish meal,\" Cogan said. \"If you can save about 20 or 25 percent of that, you\'re looking at $100,000.\"

Author: Janell O’Dea, Bradenton Herald. Read the full article here.