23 September 2022 - Any aqua nutrition expert will tell you that fishmeal is an extremely valuable ingredient.
However, there is also an active push to replace fishmeal and other marine animal ingredients, such as fish oil or krill meal, in aqua feed formulations. One major factor driving this push is pure supply and demand: given the spectacular growth projections for aquaculture, fishmeal based on wild stocks simply cannot keep up with the growth in demand for aqua feed. Moreover, there is also pushback about the environmental impacts of fishmeal production, with some concerned that the removal of so many forage fish (sardines, anchovies, and menhaden) threatens the rest of the oceanic food chain.
To help accelerate the commercialisation of alternatives to marine animal ingredients, the Fish-Free Feed (F3) Challenge was launched in 2015. We are now nearing the end of the third run of the F3 Challenge, the Carnivore edition; once the Challenge’s sales period has concluded, a cash prize will be awarded to the teams which have sold the most fish-free feed into each of three markets (salmonids, shrimp, and other carnivorous species).
Meanwhile, throughout the competition, the organisers of the F3 Challenge are also seeking to raise the profile of fish-free feed and to grow discussion around the potential alternatives available to the market. To this end, it hosted a webinar this week where representatives from global feed companies who are actively engaging with the issue were able to exchange views on the opportunities and challenges in this emerging category.
Great potential, high costs
Currently, the panelists agreed that salmon is by far the biggest market for “novel” ingredients serving as fish-free alternatives. At their own companies, they estimate that use of such ingredients might make up as much as 4-5% of salmonid feeds. When it comes to feed for other aqua species, though, the figure is much lower: universally less than 1%, and sometimes as low as 0.1%. As explained by Dr. Dave Robb of Cargill Aqua Nutrition’s SeaFurther sustainability initiative, this is because of the market pull: on the retailer side, there is a more developed market for salmon which can support a higher cost product made with premium feed.
Now, we are still in the early days for even the most highly developed of fishmeal alternatives. Nutreco’s José Villalon, corporate sustainability director, noted that the company had set itself the ambitious target of 5-10% novel ingredients in feeds by 2025, but that he was concerned that the necessary volumes simply don’t exist on the market today.
Still, Villalon said he is “confident” of achieving this target. As a massive feed company with an ambition to be a leader in this space, Nutreco is aware of its own responsibility to nurture novel ingredients concepts while they are in their infancy, with low volumes and high prices.
Obviously, the feed producers cannot bear all of the costs, any more than the ingredient developers can. Villalon called for the entire value chain to accept the need to move away from fishmeal, and to share the costs of doing so. Partnerships between the fish farmers, feed suppliers, and the novel ingredients sources must band together to present the food retail sector a “compelling case” on why these more costly feed formulations are an improvement—and, presumably, why the consumer must do their part in bearing the increased costs as well.
Even when all parts of the supply chain are on board, though, the issue of cost can still be problematic. For example, he asserted, if a fish farmer contracts to provide a certain volume of fish to a retailer at a certain delivery date, they may need to produce 2 or 3 times as much to ensure that delivery on-time and on-spec. If those fish are produced with expensive novel-ingredient feed, he said, it is not a given that the producer will be able to get the same premium price for the excess volumes. “That part we still have to resolve,” he said.
Interestingly, for other companies, cost was an argument in favour of developing formulations based on novel ingredients. Yuchi Chen, Vice President of Guangdong Evergreen Conglomerate Co., Ltd, recounted that his company began looking into fish-free tilapia feed in order to escape the volatility of fishmeal prices, rather than for environmental reasons. “Everyone’s watching the fishing quota in Chile…[fishmeal]’s a bottleneck for the whole industry,” he stated.
The alternatives: animal byproducts, insects, or single cell proteins
For Evergreen, one of the most successful replacements for fishmeal has been meals from other animals, such as feather meals or porcine meals. Chen explained that building out the supply chain for these products in China has taken time, but today, the company is using a lot of poultry byproducts.
Of course, in parts of the world scarred by the Mad Cow experience, there is a lot of hesitation around animal meals. “In Europe, there is pushback still. Even if it is legally allowed, retailers are concerned about the public image,” stated Dr. Kyla Zatti, from Biomar’s Nutrition Formulation R&D team. “It was interesting to see that in China it’s growing, whereas in Europe it’s holding back.”
Villalon added that he believes the ethical implications of abstaining from animal byproducts really need to be grappled with. Faced with the need to produce ever more food with ever fewer resources, he said, “animal byproducts [would be an invaluable] part of the toolkit,” as long as they were demonstrated to be safe and free of anti-nutritional factors or other harmful substances. “They have a tremendous nutrient profile…I think the feed industry will be going in that direction.”
When it comes to the ingredients that are most appreciated by farmers and consumers, Zatti observed that insect-based ingredients and single cell proteins (SCPs) have reached a point where prices are coming down as more commercial volumes are available.
“They’re seeing it as something you can put into feed immediately,” compared to others which might need years of development. In her opinion consumers accept these ingredients “quite readily,” barring any potential concerns about products which might have been genetically modified. Additionally, Robb pointed out that insect meals and SCPs might be appreciated for the functionality or micro-nutrients provided, beyond simply serving as protein source.
Asked about the benefits or pitfalls of the single cell protein category, Villalon said these products have an interesting future ahead of them, but warns that the energy associated with the production of some of them might prove to be a sticking point. “It will be the cost and the carbon footprint” that make or break SCP ingredients, he predicted.
Zatti, meanwhile, noted that single cell proteins grown on substrates such as crop residues, byproducts from the forestry industry, or other types of organic waste held immense potential for creating virtuous circular agricultural relationships, reducing feed production’s arable land footprint. “Regulation will be key to expanding this on a global scale,” she stated.
More robust and sustainable supply chain
Even while there remains much to be done to scale up novel ingredients, the last two decades have seen significant progress made in diversifying aqua diets. Zatti cited the work done on soya processing, which has transformed an ingredient with high levels of anti-nutrient factors and reduced feed conversion ratios into an industry staple which can now be fed at inclusion rates of up to 25% in some circumstances.
According to Robb, without this groundwork, the supply chain issues seen since the pandemic would have been catastrophic. “Twenty years ago, we were using relatively few ingredients, and didn’t know as much about salmon nutrient needs,” he observed. “We’d have been much worse off; faced with physical shortages and delays, we wouldn’t have been able to deliver.”
Finally, looking towards the future, Villalon pointed out that fishmeal is just the “low hanging fruit” for replacement by novel protein-rich ingredients. Because of its high price and volatility, expensive new technologies can more readily compete with it. However, the growth of aquaculture’s use of soy-based ingredients is also going to put a lot of pressure on delicate South American ecosystems. “We’d love to see novel ingredients competing with soy.”
