About Us

Since 2021, Nutramare have been manufacturing and selling specialist koi carp foods to the German and US markets. There has been major success already gained from this food which led for Daniel Adams of the United Kingdom to start importing it himself directly from Germany. The initial aim was to feed his own fish on a better food at a more reasonable price point, after speaking with David Otto, this was achieved and a small order was placed. Fast forward six months and some of the most elite UK koi hobbyists are now switching their koi onto Nutramare. Up to now, we have already seen major success at koi shows in the United Kingdom up and down the country. We are now setting on a journey ahead of the 2025 koi season to rock the UK koi market by introducing a new food which not only is better for you fish, but also on your wallet.

Our founding story and Nutramare philosophy

Since early childhood, I (David Otto) have been fascinated by koi and all types of fish. Parallel to my studies, I had the opportunity to work as a feeding consultant in aquaculture and as a specialist consultant in pet shops. Together with the basics of animal nutrition that I learned during my agricultural studies, I increasingly questioned the range of koi food available in stores.

Thanks to my very accommodating professor, I was given the opportunity to examine the koi feeds available on the market as part of my bachelor's thesis. During this time, I carried out laboratory analyses of various koi feeds to determine their composition and whether they met the requirements according to the rules of animal nutrition. It turned out that all of the feeds examined did not meet the requirements.

This realisation gave rise to the idea of ​​developing a better koi food. So I decided to found the company Nutramare with my long-time school friend Sebastian. Since then, he has been responsible for software development and business management tasks.

Intensive research as a basis

In the first year, we were able to invest our time in the scientific development of the food thanks to an EXIST start-up grant from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. We were also able to use the resources of the University of Rostock. As part of the grant, we were provided with rooms, laboratories and considerable material resources for research. This enabled us to carry out breeding experiments with several hundred koi. From the very beginning, we received intensive support from the koi importer Dennis Seidel.

Even at this early stage, it was important to me to take a scientific approach to the development of my own koi feed. In keeping with this, I specialized in animal nutrition during my master's degree at the University of Rostock. There, I carried out feeding experiments on fish (plant-based performance enhancers) during my master's thesis. This research laid the foundation for the use of the special herbal mixture in Nutramare feed, which supports health.

With creative ideas in the feed factory

Driven by further ideas for improvement and therefore increasing demands on production, I expressed special requests to our Koi360 special feed factory. Since our Koi360 recipe was already my own development, the feed factory offered me a job as a recipe developer and scientific advisor, which I accepted on a part-time basis. This gave me the direct opportunity to produce any imaginable feed myself. I am also directly involved in all research and further developments and carry them out myself.

Through this cooperation, I came to the company FIM Biotech GmbH during a project (aquaculture feed trial) and together with them I developed the Nutramare Active Clay as a water additive.

Advantage through transparency

With the experience I gained, I was able to gain a deep insight into the production and trade of fish feed and had to realize that unfortunately a lot of things are very opaque and concealed.

Therefore, with Nutramare, we have set ourselves the goal in 2021 of bringing transparency to animal nutrition and preparing the topics surrounding feed (feed production, ingredients, trade, feeding, etc.) in an understandable, scientific and objective way for the hobbyist. We want to convey the mechanisms and background from the perspective of the feed factory and a scientist in order to give customers the opportunity to evaluate their feed themselves.

Our philosophy is to offer optimised food made from the highest quality raw materials with additional health promoters, but without unnecessary carbohydrates. Because high-quality raw materials and an appropriate amount of food are crucial for a healthy diet.