This is Dustin from Optimal and I just wanted to put my two cents out there. First and foremost, I’ve always been interested in fish food. Many of our “competitors” these days are actually feed companies (and nutritionists) I looked-up to growing up and ultimately paved the way for what I do today. Optimal is really focused on creating the best diets we can while still trying to keep the costs reasonable. There are a lot of pieces that go into how well a feed works. Individual components like ingredients, formulations, equipment, water quality, or even pellet shapes can all have dramatic impacts on feed performance. We run many different trials in our labs, and we mostly avoid comparing our feeds to others on the market. There is enough fish to feed for all of the feed companies to have a place. Our goal is to facilitate marketplace growth, provide easy access to quality feeds, and advance our understanding of fish nutrition.

As we keep growing and facing new challenges with sourcing the ingredients for our feeds, it is important to us that we get feedback from our customers. We are very excited to support any community or academic trials that will drive the evolution of fish nutrition. We have even tried a few of our own open trials….which I still need to compile and share on this forum when I can find some time.

There are some great questions and observations already and I think the best thing for me to do is keep quiet and remove any bias I can. I, like many others, am excited to watch this thread.

Jpsdad’s last paragraph is pretty spot on. Regardless of formulations and IP, basic commodity ingredients can vary dramatically between manufacturers and even between lots from the same manufacturer. We do not use low-cost formulations. Our formulations only change if we discover something in our labs that improve the diet. I’ve learned there will always be some variances in every batch or lot of feed even if the formulations stay exactly the same. As we grow our goal is to minimize those variances the best we can.

Every pond is unique, management styles vary, and people use their ponds in different ways. Find the feed that works for you and grow some memories.

-Dustin