SPAROS Lda (SPAROS)

SPAROS (www.sparos.pt) is a technology-driven SME dedicated to the development of new products and tailored nutritional solutions for the aquaculture market. It offers the alliance of a strong scientific background in the areas of fish nutrition and aquaculture, with a flexible pilot-scale feed technology platform. SPAROS has an intense R&D effort, including the development of tools, focusing on mechanistic modelling and omic technologies, to predict biological performance and feed utilization of fish under different nutritional and environmental scenarios. SPAROS R&D effort over the last 8 years also allowed the launch commercial products for aquaculture (Hatchery Feeds), biomedical (ZEBRAFEED) and ornamental (AQUATICA) markets. Besides the manufacture of its own feeds, SPAROS is a key contract manufacturing facility for some of the major players of the EU aquafeed industry. SPAROS is responsible for the management of an extensive network of experimental rearing facilities dedicated to testing the biological performance of novel ingredients and additives in fish.

Currently SPAROS comprises 15 full time collaborators (four PhDs, eight MSc) with a strong scientific background and over 150 publications in peer review journals on the areas of nutrition and aquaculture. The team masters the key concepts, techniques and methodologies in the areas of aquafeed technology, fish nutrition and rearing both at larval and grow-out stages, digestive physiology, nutritional modulation of metabolism and health, bioinformatics, development of modelling and predictive tools for the aquaculture industry.

SPAROS main role will be in developing decision support tools for improving KPIs related to fish feeding and nutrition (WP4, WP6 and WP7), which will include a software tool to evaluate feeds and assist defining optimal feeding in fish farms, while estimating waste production