MELBOURNE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PetroAlgae Inc. (OTCPK: PALG), a leading renewable energy company that licenses its commercial micro-crop technology globally, announced today the completion of a major third party study showing that PetroAlgae micro-crop meal performs as well as alfalfa in dairy cattle diets. PetroAlgae’s micro-crop technology employs indigenous, aquatic micro-organisms suitable to local climates and is designed to enable its technology licensees to produce a cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels, a high-value protein co-product, and a new micro-crop meal for animal feed (which was the subject of the study), while absorbing carbon dioxide from greenhouse gas emissions.

The global market for dairy feed from alfalfa alone is estimated at 400 million metric tons by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. PetroAlgae micro-crop meal is expected to be highly competitive with alfalfa and other ingredients based on its positive impact on meat and milk, continuous production, and supply chain advantages, thereby opening a new market for the company and its licensing partners.

The study encompassed a continuous 6-week feeding trial of a statistically significant sample of 36 dairy cows in the barns at the University of Minnesota. It measured PetroAlgae micro-crop meal against 17.5% protein alfalfa diets for nutrient intake, milk yield and composition, showing that PetroAlgae micro-crop meal represents a new source of commercial-scale dairy feed. Among the findings:

• PetroAlgae micro-crop meal had higher dairy efficiency values.
• Unit for unit, PetroAlgae micro-crop meal had higher energy values than alfalfa.
• The gross production of both milk and milk normalized for fat and protein were similar between the group fed alfalfa and the group fed PetroAlgae micro-crop meal.
• The PetroAlgae micro-crop meal diet matched the alfalfa diet in days in milk, milk yield, body score and body weight.
• There may be an opportunity to derive added human health benefits by altering the lipid composition of meat and milk through the PetroAlgae diet.

“The results of this study show that PetroAlgae micro-crop meal is a desirable ingredient for high producing dairy cattle and that it performed comparably to high-protein alfalfa meal,” said Dr. Noah Litherland, who performed the study at the University of Minnesota. “We are encouraged to see this product perform so well against one of the more universally understood products in dairy nutrition. Furthermore, as nutritional understanding grows, there are some simple steps that can be taken to optimize the product further and increase its value. There is also an intriguing opportunity to alter the lipid composition of the meat and milk for added human health benefit,” said Dr. Litherland.

Alfalfa is one of the world’s stalwarts for animal diets. The University of Minnesota study is the first to validate PetroAlgae micro-crop meal in the dairy diet against the industry standard, and its findings about PetroAlgae micro-crop meal and alfalfa should apply anywhere this market exists. Furthermore, the local deployment advantages of PetroAlgae’s technology and the continuous nature of its production process, create supply chain advantages for the faster-growing dairy markets in Asia and the Middle East, all of which have a growing dependence on imports. Micro-crop farms utilizing PetroAlgae’s technology grow new sources of protein, feed, and fuel feedstocks locally that are not genetically modified and are resistant to local diseases.

“We are very excited with the findings of Dr. Litherland and his team at the University of Minnesota,” said Anthony Tiarks, CEO of PetroAlgae. “Confirming our product value against such a large and well-understood feed market is a key step in accelerating our commercialization and opens the door for bringing PetroAlgae micro-crop meal to other species and feed applications. We believe the need for imports and destination market risks in the supply chain can be greatly reduced by utilizing our technology. It can also provide a longer-term supply solution to the decline of forage acres around the world, as competing crops like corn, soybeans, and cotton displaces forage.”

About PetroAlgae

PetroAlgae Inc. (OTCPK: PALG), based in Melbourne, Florida, is a renewable energy company that licenses and deploys the leading biomass production platform to address existing and growing unmet needs in the global energy and agriculture markets. The company’s technology enables the growing and harvesting of a wide variety of non-algae, aquatic micro-crops suitable to local climates in open-pond bioreactors. For more information about PetroAlgae, please visit our website at http://www.petroalgae.com

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