Retaining nutrients in the food chain, a key challenge

Pelagic fish resources are known to be both nutritious and climate friendly. In its latest SOFIA report, FAO is repeating that pelagic fisheries have the highest scores of biologically sustainable stocks. For all these reasons, these species are recommended in people’s diets. In which form should this be?

The most direct way is direct food consumption, through eating the fish either fresh, frozen or canned. Eighty nine percent of the total animal aquatic production, wild caught and farmed fish combined, was used for direct human consumption in 2022 according to the FAO's 2024 SOFIA report.

This is a growing trend which we see as being very positive. Especially when compared with the 1970s, when a little bit more than 60% went to direct human consumption. When we look at other sectors, in 2022, almost 40% of all cereal grain was fed to an animal (2024 FAO Report on Global Food Commodity Markets ).

What happens to the remaining 11% of the aquatic animal production which wasn’t used in direct human consumption? Most of it went to fishmeal and fish oil production. Indeed, small pelagics are short lived species with a seasonal harvesting. When local infrastructure is not in place to process and store the fish for direct human consumption, due to a lack of policy or market incentive (people’s taste generally favour other species than small pelagics like herring or anchovy) the raw material is better utilized after having been stabilised through dehydration.

The fishmeal industry provides a viable alternative to retain nutrients in the food chain. When you add the increasing volumes of fish by-products which are left from the processing of wild caught and farmed fish, you end up with significant volumes of materials which can support the growth of the aquaculture sector.

Fishmeal and fish oil have an important role to play in the Blue Transformation roadmap which the FAO is calling for. Feed and food shouldn’t be opposed but strategies making the most of their complementary should continue to be explored.