SCOTTISH salmon will soon be fed with proteins recovered from the whisky production process after a biotechnology firm revealed it is close to building its first processing facility.

After two successful large-scale proof of concept trials at a distillery in Dufftown, Horizon Proteins is finalising venture capital investment to set up a production hub in the North East of Scotland.

“That has allowed us to start talking to investors and we can now go to the next stage where we can start building,” said research and development director Jane White.

Aboubakry Diallo, strategic development director at the company, added it was close to finalising a venture capital investment deal ahead of full-scale production. The investment required was not disclosed but he said: “We’re looking for something that will allow us to build our first operating plant.”

The proof-of-concept funding, which came via a £575,000 grant from Scottish Enterprise, was based on the firm achieving £5m in revenue within five years of operating, which Mr Diallo said was “at least what our goal is”.

The business should begin generating revenue in 2018, once the first plant is up and running.

And instead of one major central operating plant, the company plans to create a number of smaller plants, each with a core team working there.

Based on internal targets, that first plant will be able to produce 12,000 tonnes of protein, annually, by 2020 – representing about 15 per cent of the salmon farming industry’s demands. Protein makes up around half the feed.

Horizon Proteins was spun-out of Heriot-Watt University when Nic Willoughby and Alan Harper set out to improve bio-product processing in the food and drink industry, choosing to focus on whisky.

The process involves extracting protein from the pot ale leftover from the fermentation process. Supplied to fish feed producers in powder form, the breakthrough means locally-sourced, readily-available sustainable protein can be used to feed salmon.

“We are researchers at heart and we’re passionate about the whole idea of sustainability,” said Ms White. “When we started looking at this project and developing it into a business we started to see how it fits. Pot ale is 95 per cent water, so being able to pull out something valuable that that you can reuse is quite something.”

Mr Diallo added: “[The salmon industry] is always looking for new protein sources and this is a great opportunity to use something that is locally available, compared to material sourced from South America.”

What’s more, the barley protein extract has a 90 per cent protein content, much higher than the benchmark fishmeal at 75 per cent. Furthermore, as the salmon farming industry grows, fishmeal production is expected to fall, leading to a shortfall in the protein component of fish feed – creating an opportunity for alternative protein sources.

While there is a romanticism about using one global Scottish export to fuel another, Ms White said there is a tangible reason for marrying the two. “Whisky is made with just barley, water and yeast so the protein we end up with comes from the barley and is quite nutritionally useful for the salmon. We didn’t shoehorn the two together, they are very well matched.”

She added that while malt whisky would remain the focus, eventually that could expand out.

“Any industry that produced a verified stream with a protein component in there, we can pull that out and use it as a feed – whether it’s grain whisky, bioethanol plants, cereal processing plants.”

Mr Willoughby also helped found the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC), a member network that facilitates collaborations between academia and business, which has a target to help Scotland’s biotechnology industry generate up to £1.5 billion gross value for the economy.

The group’s chief executive Roger Kilburn said Horizon Proteins was a lovely example of the circular economy. “One hundred years ago there was a very small global chemistry industry. And if the 20th century was the commercialisation of chemistry, the 21st century is going to be the commercialisation of biology.”