Drop in fish oil production causing aquaculture bottleneck

Despite inflation, raw material prices, logistics costs, and other inputs all increasing significantly in 2022, the aquaculture feed industry increased its production at between 2 and 3 percent in all key supply regions. This was also achieved despite a slight decrease in the year’s total animal feed supply at less than 1.27 billion metric tons (MT), according to Norwegian independent commodity broker Holtermann.

While these financial impacts have continued into 2023, there’s one challenge that stands to have a much greater impact than all the others: the production of EPA and DHA – or eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acids, Holtermann CEO Christian Meinich said at the 2023 edition of the North Atlantic Seafood Forum (NASF).

In nature, these two long-chain omega-3 fatty acids are primarily found in marine products like oily and non-oily fish, and shellfish. Aquaculture feed companies therefore procure large quantities of fish oil to formulate their feeds because they impart their high concentration of beneficial EPA and DHA into the farmed fish that consume it. However, around one-third of the world’s fish oil is derived from the Peruvian anchoveta fishery, and there has been a significant reduction in the production of fish oil from that fishery. This has been caused by a number of issues, but particularly high juvenile catches. Meinich estimated there’s been more than a 12 percent reduction in the global supply of fish oil as a result.

“The catch was fair, but the fish oil yield was low,” he said.

Consequently, aquafeed companies have seen fish oil prices double to more than USD 3,000 (EUR 2,790) per MT in recent months. Meinich said he hopes this is just a short-term pinch, but there are fears it could become a recurring problem. But for this year, at least, Peru’s fish oil production remains unpredictable, he said.

“So the main challenge for aquafeed companies in 2023 is to source sufficient supplies of EPA and DHA,” he said.

Norwegian food research institute Nofima Senior Scientist Bjarne Hatlen said the supply of EPA and DHA has long-been “a major concern” for the aquaculture industry, which uses 70 percent of the 1 million MT of fish oil produced globally, with half of that volume taken by the salmon farming sector.

“The marine omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA are very important for the reputation of salmon as a healthy food,” he said.

Hatlen said the salmon sector has a recent history of increasing its feed ingredient flexibility, including the replacement of fish oil with rapeseed oil.

“In 2000, all of the added oil in salmon feeds was fish oil, but today it’s about one-third. Without this dilution, we would never have been able to grow [production] in the way that we have," he said. "There has been a huge increase in the total consumption of oil in salmon diets, while the fish oil consumption has been relatively stable at around 200,000 MT. This has been done without any known negative effects on the growth of the fish.”

However, Hatlen also acknowledged some recent research that advises the rapeseed oil replacement is approaching a level where the health, welfare, and end-quality of the fish could be compromised.

“Further dilution is not an option,” he said. “To go further, we need to develop new sources.”

One such option, Hatlen suggested, is ...

Photo courtesy of Holtermann