Peter Johannesen, president of IFFO, was one of the speakers * of the Aquaculture Feed Summit of the North Atlantic Seafood Forum. At the meeting, he explained why marine raw materials will become a sustainable platform for healthy food in the future.
All the speakers stressed that in order to provide nutrition to billions of people, while addressing many challenges such as population growth, energy shocks and climate change, dialogue and contact play an important role in the value chain of the whole aquatic food system. The meeting began with a speech by guests from Skretting. They said that the output of seafood was expected to increase by 32% by 2030. Therefore, an additional 40 million tons of raw materials are needed.
Due to the current strategic use of marine raw materials in the aquaculture industry, 1 kg of marine raw materials can produce 5 kg of cultured seafood: "This is an incredible multiplier effect, indicating the importance of fish meal and fish oil to the global production of cultured seafood." Han Peide stressed.
The second important information shared by all speakers was about recycling: marine raw materials do not produce waste. At the beginning of the speech, the speaker from Veramaris quoted the data of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. According to the data, 35% of the fish, crustaceans and molluscs caught from the oceans, lakes and fish farms were wasted before reaching the consumers' plates. They insist that wasting fish means wasting feed.
Marine raw materials come from a variety of raw materials, two thirds of which come from feed fish. The market for feed fish directly as food is very limited. Once the by-products and leftovers from fish processing are processed into fish meal and fish oil, they can be strategically used in feed to produce more widely accepted and consumed fish and other animal protein in a highly efficient way. The increasing use of by-products provides the aquaculture industry with an important source of additional raw materials to supplement its required incremental feed. The by-products from fish and shellfish processing may account for 70% of its original weight (the yield of fish fillet depends on the species, usually accounting for 30-50% of the fish).
When we studied fish meal and fish oil respectively, we found that the global production of fish meal from by-products accounted for 29.8% of the total output, while the production of fish oil from by-products accounted for 51% of the total output. Compared with fish meal, the output value of fish oil is higher. This is mainly due to the high oil production of salmon and salmon scraps.
The life cycle assessment of feed raw materials is the core issue of the whole activity, and is also considered as the key factor to support decision-making.
Han Peide stressed: "We are all aware of the importance of understanding our activity footprint. All activities and production will leave footprints. We need to understand the factors that cause footprints so that we can mitigate and improve them." Life cycle assessment (LCA) aims to compare all environmental impacts attributable to products and services by quantifying all inputs and outputs of material flows and assessing how these material flows affect the environment. By joining the Global Feed Life Cycle Assessment Institute (GFLI), IFFO will contribute to the construction of a public database for cross-industry comparison.
If we pay attention to one of the 16 parameters covered by the Global Feed Life Cycle Assessment Institute database, namely carbon footprint, we can see that all major small pelagic fish stocks have performed well. The carbon dioxide emissions of Peruvian anchovy are less than 8% of the carbon dioxide emissions of terrestrial raw materials such as SPC (concentrated soybean protein, which emissions exceed 90%). The performance of marine by-products is also excellent.
Last but not least, nutrition. About our diet ω- 3 and ω- 6 The necessary balance between EPA and DHA and the many benefits provided by EPA and DHA are described in many papers, including the Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture (NOFIMA). In addition to these key nutrients, amino acids and vitamins also play a key role in improving fish health, promoting human development and maintaining health.
Marine raw materials are increasingly used as strategic raw materials. They have created a solid nutrition platform for the aquaculture industry. Fish meal is an ideal nutritional package, rich in protein, essential amino acids and various other micronutrients. Fish oil is still the most cost-effective long chain in the world ω- 3 Source of fatty acids.