10/01/2026
Coffee Talk with John
Today we are going to share about food, fish food: So as much as about 80% of the fish feeds in the world are made with equipment made by a Swiss company named Buhler in Utzwil Switzerland. While there are many steps and types of equipment used, most all of it ends with an extruder. These extruders use temperature to manage the fluidity of the feeds. I visited the CTO of this division many years ago and she told me that if I wanted good fish food, or dog or cat food for that matter, don’t cook the food! She pointed out there was no cooking in the oceans. Turns out that if exposed to more than 120 degrees Fahrenheit the fatty acids, essential amino acids, proteins and micro nutrients are denatured. So nearly 100% of the prepared fish feeds, or dog feeds for that matter, are processed at temperatures in excess of this limit and are not only denatured, so not good nutrition, but in many cases are toxic.
So she named for me the methods and producers that used low temperature, we used them, and bult up our own recipes and kitchens and food products. We would say we cannot do what we do without this food technology.
Given such great nutrition, we find fish live a very long time and produce offspring for most of their entire life. We have 30 year old clown fish pairs that have been producing eggs twice a month for 29 years and counting. We have a bat fish that was born in 1996!
We have learned to manage many ingredients, from garlic oil to astaxanthin to sources of proteins and fatty acids and amino acids that have never seen temps higher than 80 degrees Fahrenheit!
SA sells its feeds, and they elicit a very strong feeding response and are a full healthy nutrition.
