Use of trimmings from seafood production (resource depletion)

Last update: 2 June 2023

• Action: Reduces the environment footprint and contributes to circular bioeconomy by increasing the use of by-products from seafood processing (meal, oil, protein concentrate) in compound feed for aquaculture.
• Animal category: Fish, crustaceans.
• Technique: Incorporation in feed formulation of processed marine co-products from seafood production.
• Mode of implementation: Offals and trimmings from the processing for food production of any kind of wild and farmed fish can be processed into meal, oil and protein concentrate; approx. 50 % of the fish is used as food (figure differs between the species); the rest is non-edible and edible animal by-products, but a large proportion of this nowadays is disposed of as waste; in 2021, 327,000 tons of potential edible by-products was used in feed (all animals) in Norway, and this constituted 67% of the total volume of co-products usable as feed.
• Requirements / limitations: Seafood by-products are falling under the scope of the Animal-By-Products legislation; only category 3 material is eligible for feed use.
• Economic consequences: The distance between harbors & fish processing facilities and marine meal & oil producing units conditions the economic viability of the use of seafood by-products in feed; improvement in logistics of seafood by-products to facilitate their channeling to producers of fish oil, meal and hydrolysate is key.
• Other considerations: Make it obligatory for fish vessel to land all offals from harvested fish would be an effective measure to improve the rate of use of seafood by-products for feed use.
• References:
  • Norwegian Seafood Research Fund, 2022, Restråstoffanalyser 2020-2022: Sluttrapport, https://www.fhf.no/prosjekter/prosjektbasen/901605/ (see Sluttrapport (English summary)).
• Other techniques: Use of nutrients from low trophic level resources such as zooplankton, insects, polychaetes, starfish, krill, etc.