The Wittaya Way

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Figure 1: Wittaya Aqua The Logo

Wittaya Aqua’s name comes from the Thai word วิทยา or “Wittaya”, which means knowledge or science. Our company ethos is exactly that. Since Wittaya’s founding in 2018, we have strived to bring scientific rigor and the best analytical tools to the aquaculture industry. Our vision is to use our knowledge to feed the world with sustainably farmed seafood that is produced in an efficient and transparent manner.

At our core, we are aquaculture scientists and digital technologists who care deeply about the industry. Our team brings together decades of aquaculture science and technology experience to create a digital platform of analytical tools that integrates and interprets data across the feed-to-farm supply chain. Ultimately, we want to help the aquaculture industry become more efficient, profitable, and sustainable.

Figure 2: The Challenge of Diversity

Aquaculture is a complex and competitive industry. Compared to terrestrial agriculture, which focuses on four major species—cows, pigs, chickens, and sheep—aquaculture involves the rearing hundreds of different animal species across fish, crustaceans, and shellfish. There are also many more farming systems and environmental factors which affect aquaculture species. Pond, net pen, cage, raceway, and recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) are just a few examples of different aquaculture farming systems.

Another difference is the extent of research knowledge between aquaculture and terrestrial agriculture. Aquaculture has only been studied and commercialized for about forty years in salmon, while terrestrial animals have been worked on for over a hundred years. This means that not only is the total range of knowledge required for aquaculture larger, but we have also made less relative scientific progress in it. Meanwhile, more data is being collected all the time as the world becomes more digital. Some of it is not even of the right type to draw sound conclusions from. The result in aquaculture is that there is a large mess of data and not enough scientific theories to interpret it.

Figure 3: AquaOp - Creating a Digital Eco-System Linking Farms and Feeds

Wittaya decided to start by helping farmers digitize and interpret data they collected using scientific models based on our co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Bureau’s research. At the time, our goal was to help farmers centralize their data and “connect the dots” to understand trends and insights about their animals’ growth.

We developed several prediction models for growth, feed requirement, and mortality. The models were calibrated with industry and farm-specific data to give accurate forecasts. When given historical farm data, our models standardize performance across production cycles and benchmark them against each other. Farm stakeholders then have an objective view of how well a cycle performed, irrespective of differences in conditions such as days of culture, feeding amount, or water parameters. This formed the basis of our AquaOp Farm platform.

Over time, we realized that aquafeed producers and ingredient suppliers also had knowledge gaps. They frequently came to our team with questions about optimal feed formulation for different species, how to use various ingredients, and what the value is of specific ingredients to a feed. There is a lot of misinformation on aquafeed nutrition and how it affects animals on the farm. Our mission is to use science and data to find the truth, and from there the AquaOp Feed platform was born.

With our knowledge and tools, suppliers can understand the benefits their ingredients bring to an aquafeed formulation. Feed producers can optimize their formulations to reduce cost while maintaining or even improving quality. Our platform lets users analyze and simulate the effects of feeds and additives under different farming conditions. We want to close the knowledge gap between ingredients, feed, and farms.

Today, Wittaya Aqua strives to helps aquaculture companies across the feed-to-farm value chain better manage their nutrition and feed. We continue to improve our platform with science-based data and insights to make seafood production both sustainable and affordable.

If you also believe in a scientific evidence-based approach and want to improve aquaculture through better nutrition, connect with us today!