Innovation drives development of Zhoushan's "Blue Silicon Valley"

The storage tank of fish oil in Zhejiang Fengyu Marine Biological Product Manufacturing Co at the Zhanmao Industrial Park (Zone B) [Photo/zjzsrbs] 

At the Zhanmao Industrial Park (Zone B) is situated the Zhejiang Fengyu Marine Biological Product Manufacturing Co, an environmentally friendly high-tech company focusing on marine biological product processing. 

Established in 2002, it is one of the biggest marine biological product processing companies in Zhejiang province, with a capacity of processing more than 70,000 tons of products such as fish meal and fish oil every year, and an annual output of 500 million yuan. 

The company created a special enzymolysis-based fish dissolved pulp to replace the fish meal in 2015, and became the nation's first company to have used the enzymolysis technology to produce the pulp. 

"Experiments show that groupers feeding on the pulp grow 20 percent faster than normal, and a certain amount of fish meal generates the equal effects of one quarter of the same amount of fish pulp," said Zhang Yinzhao, general manager of the company, suggesting that fish meal, made of marine fish, will be less used in producing the fish food, thus lowering the fish food cost and protecting the fish resources.

The company produced 10,000 tons of such pulp last year, generating an output of 70 million yuan.

"We will continue to develop other marine biological food varieties, healthcare products and drugs to enhance our competitiveness," said Zhang.

The company's innovative practice epitomizes the transformation and upgrading of traditional companies at the Putuo Marine Ecological Innovation Valley in Zhanmao, which is now a hub of marine high-tech industries and dubbed "Blue Silicon Valley" in Zhoushan for its booming blue economy, or marine economy.

The valley has introduced 83 marine high-tech companies to date and has invested 1.5 billion yuan in the marine biological industry.