Still waters

Growing demand

The demand for wholesome, nutritious and sustainable ingredients for pet food is growing with the trend towards prepared petfood and away from table scraps. One of the most nutritious ingredients is fish, a source of digestible proteins, essential Omega 3 fats and a long list of micronutrients. But there is a snag. The amount of fish harvested from the oceans has been static for some years and the need to provide nutrition for a growing human population is also increasing. So how will the demand for fish in pet food be met?

Fish by-product

Recent research by the Stirling University Institute of Aquaculture (IoA), commissioned by IFFO, the trade association for the marine ingredients industry, shows how this problem might be solved. While production of fish protein (fishmeal) and fish oil has been steady in recent years, the amount of whole fish used has reduced. The gap has been filled with increasing amounts of trimmings and other by-products from fish processing and the trend towards more filleted-at-source fish, as opposed to sold whole, and high volumes of farmed fish being made available have been significant factors.

So how much by-product is out there? Stirling’s several months’ data gathering revealed more fish by-product is still dumped than is being used. Scientists used models of current and future fisheries and aquaculture production, to show an increasing availability of raw material from byproduct derived from aquaculture as that sector continues to grow, but also to confirm an under-utilisation of by-product from both fisheries and aquaculture at the current time. The total global supply of raw material was estimated to be just under 20 million tonnes, of which 14 million tonnes comes from whole fish, and the remaining 6 million tonnes from by-product. That raw material was estimated to produce around 4.6 million tonnes of fishmeal and 678,000 tonnes of fish oil, figures which are similar to, although a little lower than, IFFO’s recent annual estimates.

Fishmeal and fish oil

With 54% of the region’s fishmeal supply and 47% of fish oil coming from by-product, Europe leads the proportionate utilisation of by-product raw material. That equates to 381,000 tonnes fishmeal produced annually from by-product, and 90,000 tonnes of fish oil. Asia, and China in particular, shows the most potential for marine ingredient supply from under-utilised resources in both fisheries and aquaculture. Estimates for the by-product proportion of the total raw material supply in Asia and China were 44% and 35% respectively out of annual supplies of fishmeal of 1.03 million tonnes and 433,000 tonnes. Fish oil is predicted to grow more slowly than fishmeal, as future contributions from aquaculture are likely to include increasing proportions of low-oil yield farmed freshwater species.

Future scenarios

Dr Neil Auchterlonie, technical director of IFFO, said: “Models such as this are useful in providing an overview of future scenarios for the industry, and are important in managing the security of supply of marine ingredients within global feed and food supply chains.” At the July 2016 meeting of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Committee on Fisheries, IFFO was able to raise the issue of by-product recovery and ask member states to provide support in capturing this valuable raw material and reducing the amount going to waste.