New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research

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Chemical composition and nutritive value of

antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) and southern
blue whiting (Micromesistius austral is)

G. P. Savage & M. J. Foulds

To cite this article: G. P. Savage & M. J. Foulds (1987) Chemical composition and nutritive
value of antarctic krill (Euphausia�superba) and southern blue whiting (Micromesistius
austral�is), New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 21:4, 599-604, DOI:
10.1080/00288330.1987.9516264

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00288330.1987.9516264

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New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 1987, Vol. 21: 599-604 599
0028-8330/87/2104-0599$2.50/0 © Crown copyright 1987

Chemical composition and nutritive value of antarctic krill

(Euphausia superba) and southern blue whiting
(Micromesistius australis)
G. P. SAVAGE* INTRODUCTION
M. J. FOULDS During the last decade there has been an increasing
Department of Agricultural Biochemistry and interest in utilising the fish resources of the Ant-
Nutrition arctic Ocean. Human interest in the southern Ant-
University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne arctic Ocean was originally limited to the utilisation
NE1 7RU, United Kingdom of whales. The dwindling number of whales result-
ing from their exploitation has resulted in an
increased abundance of krill, Euphausia superba
Abstract Freeze-dried or oven-dried antarctic (Dana), in these waters. The utilisable resources of
krill (Euphausia superba) and southern blue whit- this shrimp-like crustacean have been estimated to
ing (Micromesistius australis) (SBW) were analysed range from 50 to 150 million tonnes per year, with
for their proximate and amino acid contents. Each catch rates of about 40 tonnes per hour being quoted
sample was then combined into semi-purified diets in the literature (Grantham 1977).
and fed to male weanling rats. The krill and SBW There are many problems associated with the
meal provided the sole source of protein in each handling of krill if it were to be used for human
diet. The true digestibility of the protein of all diets consumption. The main problems are that krill
was consistently high (94.0-96.6%). The mean bio- cephalothorax is easily broken during handling and
logical value (BV) of the SBW meal was 78.7, simi- its meat quickly breaks down owing to the release
lar to that of white fish meal (81.0). The krill meal of visceral enzymes if it is not deep frozen or pro-
had significantly lower BV (mean 65.9), which could cessed immediately upon harvesting (Suzuki 1981).
be significantly improved on addition of 0.1% DL- A simple solution to the utilisation of krill in the
methionine (BV 75.6) or 0.1% cystine (BV 72.9). mean time would be to convert the krill to a dry
meal on board ship and then incorporate the meal
into animal feeds.
Keywords antarctic krill; southern blue whit- A number of reports have been made on the
ing; meals; chemical composition; true digestibil- chemical composition of whole krill by researchers
ity; biological value; net protein utilisation; protein from many countries (Gilberg 1971; Grantham
efficiency ratio. 1977; Martin 1979; Siebertetal. 1980; Suzuki 1981).
On a dry-weight basis, krill contains from 60 to
78% crude protein, 7 to 26% crude fat and 12 to
17% ash (Grantham 1977). Considerable variation
in analyses between authors does occur and this is
almost certainly due to the complex interactions of
age, season, location, sex, physiological condition,
and diet on the composition of krill (Grantham
1977). Overall the composition of krill is very simi-
lar to that of known related species such as shrimps,
crabs lobsters, crayfish, etc. (Gilberg 1971; Gran-
tham 1977). Krill is potentially a significant source
of vitamins A, D, and B-group complex. Astax-
anthin is present in appreciable quantities. Krill
contains a wide range of useful minerals being par-
ticularly rich in calcium, copper, iron, magnesium,
and phosphorus (Grantham 1977). While it is quite
Received 29 October 1986; accepted 5 February 1987
clear that whales, the largest of mammals, and other
animals thrive on a diet of krill, more information
* Present Address: Department of Biochemistry,
1
Lincoln is required on its overall nutritive value and par-
College, University of Canterbury , Canterbury, New
Zealand ticularly the biological value of its protein.
600 New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 1987, Vol. 21

A few animal feeding experiments have been car- separately broken up and minced while partially
ried out using krill as a major source of protein in frozen. The minced samples were sprayed with an
the diets of rats (Iwatani et al. in Suzuki 1981; ethanolic solution of ethyl gallate (100 mg/kg wet
Obtake 1980; Siebert et al. 1980). Other authors weight) and thoroughly mixed. Half of the sample
have fed krill protein concentrate to rats (Sidhu et was freeze-dried. The remainder of the sample was
al. 1970) or they have evaluated the chemical com- spread on trays and dried in a vacuum oven set at
position of krill shell waste (Naczk et al. 1981). The 58 °C (24 mm Hg) for 14 hours. The dried samples
results from these experiments do not, however, of krill, SBW, and white fish meal (Ranger Fishing
present a clear picture of the overall nutritive value Co. Ltd., North Shields, Northumberland, U.K.)
of krill. were then ground through a 1 mm mesh and stored
Another potentially usable Antarctic resource, dessicated at — 20 °C until required. Residual
southern blue whiting (SBW), Micromesistius aus- moisture, protein (N X 6.25), ash, and crude fibre
tralis (Norman), has received even less attention contents of each sample were determined in dupli-
than krill. It is reasonable to expect that meal made cate by the methods of the AOAC (1970). Gross
from blue whiting would be very similar to white energy content was determined with a Gallenkamp
fish meal. This is confirmed by Bergsranning (1982) adiabatic bomb calorimeter. Amino acids were
who showed that chickens fed diets based on determined with a Technicon Amino Acid Ana-
northern blue whiting meal or white fish meal gave lyser (Spackman et al. 1958). Cystine was con-
similar growth yields. verted to cysteic acid and methionine to methionine
This paper describes the chemical composition sulphone by performic acid oxidation of the meal,
and nutritive value of whole krill and whole SBW prior to acid hydrolysis (Moore 1963).
meals and compares them to a sample of white fish
meal and a standard protein source, egg albumin.
Animal assay
Once the crude protein of each meal had been
determined the ground raw meals were mixed
MATERIALS AND METHODS separately with standard ingredients to provide 8%
crude protein in the final diets (Table 1). Krill and
Chemical analysis blue whiting provided the sole source of protein in
Samples of frozen krill and SBW were made avail- each diet.
able from stocks stored deep frozen at — 20 °C at Each diet was fed to 5 male Wistar albino rats
the Torry Research Station, Aberdeen. These were aged c. 6 weeks and weighing between 95 and 100 g
obtained from an earlier West German Antarctic at the start of the experiment. The rats were indi-
survey expedition. Blocks of krill and SBW were vidually housed in metabolism cages (Thompson
1970) in a room maintained at 20 °C with 12-hour
light and dark periods. Each rat was fed 9 g of diet
Table 1 Composition of experimental diets (g/kg diet as daily at 1500 hours when residues were collected
fed). and weighed. Water was provided ad lib.
Rats were given a 5-day pre-test period during
1% egg 8% egg which they received the test ration. This was
Composition albumin albumin Krill SBW followed by a 7-day balance period during which
quantitative collections of urine and faeces were
Maize starch 610 540 470 488 made. Nitrogen balance was calculated following
Glucose 160 160 160 160 Kjeldahl nitrogen determinations of feed, feed res-
Maize oil 100 100 100 100 idues, faeces, and urine. Biological value (B V) was
Cellulose 80 80 80 80 calculated using the method of Mitchell (1924).
Vitamin mixture+ 20 20 20 20
Mineral mixture* 20 20 20 20 Correction of the faecal and urinary nitrogen excre-
Egg albumin? 10 80 — — tions were made by calculating the metabolic faecal
Dried krill 150 nitrogen (MFN) and endogenous urinary nitrogen
Dried SBW — — — 132 (EUN) excretions of 5 rats receiving a diet which
contained 10 g/kg egg albumin (Table 1). It was
tVitamin diet fortification mix (904654). ICN Nutritional assumed that the egg albumin protein was com-
Biochemicals, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. pletely digestible and retained, thereby not making
•Mineral fortification mix. Mineral quantities per kg mix- any significant contribution to the MFN and EUN.
ture were: FeSO4.7H2O, 27.0 g; MnSO4.4H2O, 5.292 g: A further semi-synthetic diet containing 80 g/kg
CaCO3, 318.4 g; KH2PO4, 389.0 g; NaCl(+KI), 139.30 g;
MgSO4.7H2O, 117.329 g; CoCl2.6H2O, 0.023 g; ZnSO4 pure egg albumin was fed to a group of 5 rats to
.7H2O), 0.548 g; Na2SeO3, 0.03 g; CuSO4.5H2O, 2.385 g. constitute a reference diet with which to compare
5Egg albumin (33008) BDH. Ltd. Poole, U.K. the test diets.
Savage & Foulds—Antarctic krill and southern blue whiting 601

Table 2 Proximate composition of white fish meal, krill meal, and SBW meal
(g/kg), and their gross energy (MJ/kg DM).

Krill meal SBW meal

White
fish Freeze- Oven- Freeze- Oven-
meal dried dried dried dried

Dry matter 907 924 943 932 954

Ether extract 104 108 108 171 168
Crude protein 705 685 691 697 701
Ash 191 160 165 105 109
Gross energy 18.7 20.0 20.0 19.0 19.0

From the nitrogen-balance data, values for true (Miller 1973; Windsor & Barlow 1981). The values
digestibility of nitrogen (TD), biological value (BV), for krill meal were comparable with the values
and net protein utilisation (NPU) were calculated summarised from the literature by Grantham (1977)
as follows: and are very similar to those of known related spe-
cies such as shrimp, crabs, and lobsters. Precise
/ - (F- MFN) agreement between various authors is rare as men-
TD = X 100 tioned earlier, as there are certainly complex inter-
actions of age, season, location, sex, physiological
_ I-(F- MFN) - (U - EUN) condition, and diet in the various samples that have
BV
/ - (F - MFN) X 10
° been collected and analysed.
The proximate composition of SBW meal was
I - (F- MFN) - (U - EUN) very similar to the standard sample of white fish
NPU = - X 100
meal, except that it had a higher ether-extractable
fraction and lower ash contents. This would be
where / = nitrogen intake, F = nitrogen excreted expected as the SBW meal was made from whole
in faeces, U = nitrogen excreted in urine, MFN = fish. Fish oils are extracted during the manufacture
metabolic faecal nitrogen, and EUN = endogenous of white fish meal resulting in a higher ash- and
urinary nitrogen. low oil-containing meal.
Protein effiency ratio (PER) values were calcu- The amino acid content of krill protein has been
lated from 4-week growth and food intake data as well studied and is characterised by a relatively high
follows (AOAC 1970): content of essential amino acids. The essential
Weight gain of the test group amino acids (Table 3) were similar to those in the
sample of SBW meal. The amino acid values for
Protein consumed by the test group freeze-dried krill are comparable with the results
The relative nutritive value (T-RNV) was cal- reported for raw meat and heated meat (Siebert et
culated using the simplified assay procedure of Stott
et al. (1963).
The growth of Tetrahymena pyriformis W was
measured after 4 days' incubation in standard Table 3 Essential amino acid composition (g amino
acid/100 g protein).
medium. The ground test proteins provided the sole
source of protein. Organisms were counted in a sin- Meal Egg albumin
gle-cell haemocytometer with Fuchs-Rosenthal rul-
ing to BS 748. Freeze- Freeze- This FAO
The data were subjected to statistical analysis by dried krill dried SBW study (1973)
using the analysis of variance technique (Snedecor
1965); Duncan's multiple range test was used to Arginine 5.4 5.1 5.8 5.3
test significance between means (Duncan 1955). Histidine 2.5 2.8 2.7 2.7
Isoleucine 5.4 4.0 5.7 5.5
Leucine 6.6 6.2 9.2 8.9
Lysine 5.9 7.1 7.1 6.6
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Methionine 2.1 2.7 4.1 3.9
Phenylanine 4.1 3.4 6.0 5.7
The proximate analyses of all samples tested are 3.9 4.1 3.7 5.0
Threonine
shown in Table 2. The results for white fish meal Valine 4.4 4.4 6.8 6.1
were in general agreement with published data
602 New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 1987, Vol. 21

Table 4 Nutritive value of krill and SBW meal compared with a standard white fish meal and egg albumin. Mean
values with difference superscripts in each row are significantly 1different (P < 0.05).

Krill meal SBW meal

Egg White Freeze- Oven- Freeze- Oven- S.e.m.

Albumin fish meal dried dried dried dried (N = 30)

True digestibility1' 98.0= 91.8d 94.0c 96.6ah 0.56

Biological value* + 99.4* 81.0" 66.6C 65. K 77.9b 79.5b 1.07
Net protein utilisation 97.4= 74.3» 63.0^ 61.2C 75.7b 75.7" 1.16

+ MFN, 1.005 mg N/g DM consumed,

t EUN, 949.5 mg N/(kg body weight)0-75.

al. 1980) while the amino acid content of the SBW
meal and egg albumin are comparable with those
reported for these products by Talabi et al. (1980).
The values for egg albumin were included in this
table as it was used as a reference protein in the
later animal experiment.
The lysine content in krill was lower than in the
SBW meal sample. In contrast, Suzuki (1981) sug-
gests that the lysine content in krill is higher than
in most foods though not as high as in crayfish
(Gilberg 1971). Talabi et al. (1980) showed that
while lysine was 98% available in egg albumin, the
availability in fish meals ranged from 90 to 96%.
The methionine content of krill meal was lower
than the SBW meal sample. Gilberg (1971) recorded
an even lower value of 1.6g/100g protein while
Suzuki (1981) recorded a value of 3.03 g/100 g pro-
tein. Talabi et al. (1980) showed the methionine in
egg albumin was 98% available but only 90% avail-
able from white fish meal. The availability of
methionine from krill meal should be very high as
40% is present in the free form (Gilberg 1971). The
low level of methionine in krill meal would suggest
that it may be the first limiting amino acid in this
protein.
The true digestibility of krill and SBW protein
appeared to be uniformly high (Table 4), signifi-
cantly higher (P < 0.05) than the reference sample
of white fish meal. The true digestibility of the white
fish meal protein is comparable to the value of 89.0
reported by Talabi et al. (1980). The values for krill
meal are comparable to those reported by Obatake
(1980). The method of drying did not appear to
affect either sample.
The biological values (BV) of the SBW meal and
the white fish meal were not statistically different
and fell within the range reported for similar types
of meal (Windsor 1975). The BV of krill was not
affected by the method of drying. The values
recorded in Table 4 are lower than those recorded
by Obatake (1980) who reported a BV of 75.0 for
raw whole krill and 80.9 for defatted cooked mus-
cle from the tail region.
The NPU for white fish meal in this study was
74.3, again comparable with the value reported by
Talabi et al. (1980) of 76.1. The net protein utili-
sation of krill protein was again significantly lower
(P < 0.05) than the other fish meal samples.
The low level of methionine in krill meal (Table
3), lower than the value recorded by Sidhu et al.
(1970) for krill protein concentrate, suggests that
this amino acid may limit the utilisation of krill
protein. The effect of addition of 0.1% DL-methio-
nine or 0.1% cystine to diets containing freeze-dried
krill meal when fed to rats is shown in Table 5. A
very significant improvement in the biological value
occured on addition of either of these amino acids.
This suggests that methionine is the first limiting
amino acid in krill protein. Addition of cystine had
a sparing effect on the methionine in the krill pro-
tein. The mean biological value of these two diets
was 74.3 and was very similar to the values for raw
whole krill and peeled meat (75.0) recorded by
Obatake (1980). This suggests that the amino acid
composition of krill may change depending on the
stage of development of the krill harvested.
The protein efficiency ratio and the relative
nutritive value of white fish meal and krill meal

Table 5 Comparative nutritive value of krill meal supplemented with 0.1% DL-methionine and
0.1% cystine. Mean values with different superscripts in each row are significantly different (P<0.05).

Egg Krill meal Krill mean S.e.m.

albumin Krill meal + DL-methionine + cystine (N = 20)

True digestibility 99.2* 95.2 b 95.0b 94.9b 0.59

Biological value 97.3"> 67. K 75.6b 72.9b 1.68
Net protein utilisation 96.5= 63.9C 71.8b 69.2b 1.69
Savage & Foulds—Antarctic krill and southern blue whiting
Table 6 Protein efficiency ratio and relative nutritive value of white fish meal
and krill meal compared to egg albumin. Mean values with different superscripts
in each row are significantly different (P < 0.05).
Egg White
albumin fish meal
Protein
efficiency ratio 3.61a
Relative nutritive
value T-RNV 100
are shown compared to egg albumin in Table 6.
The PER value of krill was significantly inferior to
that of white fish meal (P < 0.05) while the values
for white fish meal and egg albumin were quite
similar. Sidhu et al. (1970) report that krill protein
concentrate had a PER of 3.09, similar to casein
and within the range reported for other fish protein
concentrates. Iwatani et al. in Suzuki (1981)
reported a PER of 3.16 for raw krill compared to
4.11 for whole-egg protein.
A significant feature of the relative nutritive value
method was that it was unable to distinguish a
difference in quality between white fish meal and
krill meal which has been consistently shown by
other methods.
CONCLUSIONS
Meal produced from southern blue whiting is very
digestible and its high biological value is very simi-
lar to that of white fish meal. This fish could pro-
vide a useful source of high-quality protein for
animal feed compounds in New Zealand.
The protein quality of krill does not appear to
be as good as the best-quality fish meals. It is, how-
ever, comparable to some of the meals currently
produced in New Zealand from fish which are dif-
ficult to process (Johnston & Savage 1985, 1987).
The apparently low levels of methionine or total
sulphur contents of krill can easily be compensated
for during compounding by mixing with other pro-
teins or by the addition of methionine.
An important feature of krill is its apparent lack
of wax esters. Krill also contains high levels of vita-
mins, particularly vitamin A. Krill is reported to
contain 3.12 mg/100 g (wet basis) astaxanthin which
is concentrated in the eyes (Grantham 1977). This
natural carotenoid pigment may be of considerable
interest for inclusion in salmonid feed to improve
the colour of the flesh.
One negative feature is the reported high levels
of fluoride, 1.3-2.4 gF/kg fat free-dry matter, in
krill (Soevik & Braekkan 1979). The levels were
relatively low in muscle but high in exoskeleton,
603
S.e.m.
Krill meal (N= 12)
3.10=> 2.75 b 0.12
71.61 61.61
carapace, and cephalothorax. By contrast, the
fluoride level in prawns was very low. The high
levels of fluoride may limit the use of krill in ani-
mal feeding. Separation of the exoskeleton from the
muscle would reduce the levels. It may be that the
fluoride level is as variable as other parameters have
proved to be in krill.
It is hoped that this study on the potential uti-
lisation of krill for animal feeding may stimulate
interest in the utilisation of related Crustacea living
in New Zealand waters.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Professor D. G. Armstrong for the generous
provision of facilities and his encouragement throughout
this work.
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