Feed was once again on the menu at the North Atlantic Seafood Forum held in Bergen, Norway, from 4 to 6 March 2025. IFFO represented the marine ingredients industry in several sessions, with Brett Glencross chairing and presenting at the Aquafeed Industry News session and speaking in a traceability panel discussion, Enrico Bachis speaking at the Pelagic session and Véronique Jamin chairing a panel discussion about fishery improvement projects and traceability work. Discussions have included the role of feed ingredients in environmental impacts assessment and mitigation, life cycle assessment using primary data, nutritional balance to ensure fish health and growth. On the market side, marine ingredient supply remains stable, but use is facing increasing demand from new markets. Growth of aquaculture has not led to an increase in fishing for marine ingredients.
Complementarity
Based on a precision nutrition approach, marine ingredients are being used more strategically, where they leverage greatest value. It is acknowledged that marine ingredients are a benchmark for the feed ingredient sector and that the mix of ingredients rely on a strategy of complementarity, with Skretting’s CEO noting that it is not the case of talking about replacing but rather about adding.
Precision nutrition
Feed producers keep developing a precision nutrition approach, the key for predicting salmon performance and offering fish farmers customised feed programmes based on geography, temperatures, season, day length and life stage. Understanding the trade-offs between feed solutions and modelling interactions between nutritional variables allow informed decisions.
“Ninety five percent of the feed’s carbon footprint relate to the production of the raw materials we source” Skretting noted. Reducing it relies on encouraging suppliers to engage in the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTI), sourcing lower carbon ingredients and introducing changes in formulation. “Therefore, we need to adopt a life cycle assessment perspective, gathering primary data” the representative continued. Twenty two percent of the feed ingredients sourced by Skretting Norway are covered by primary data, an improvement compared with thirteen percent in 2023.
Where is the aquafeed industry at with novel ingredients?
While Cargill presented its Effective Energy model, a follow up on the Compass model for precision nutrition, Skretting introduced its matrix for novel ingredients. “Tickets to play” include environmental footprint, biodiversity impact, social impact, nutritional profile, regulatory compliance, market acceptance, competitiveness cost, quality documentation, certifications and assurance processes, financial security as well as cultural fit. Biomar Norway unveiled its 2024 data regarding inclusion rates of micro algae (2.4%) and other novel ingredients such as insects (2.18%).
Sustainability and traceability
In a panel discussion addressing challenges and opportunities for the salmon sector to maintain its license to operate, Philipp Hämmerli from Bonafide Wealth Management, an asset manager which focuses exclusively on companies in the fish and seafood sector and their value chain, noted that the sourcing of marine ingredients according to ESG criteria is heavily under communicated with end-customers. “A better educated consumer, who knows how sustainable salmon is, will feel good, buy more and create demand, which will increase the value of salmon”. Fishery Improvement Projects should lead to a higher and sustainable biomass available for steady catches. The less volatile the cost and therefore the business is, the more the financial market is willing to pay for. “Financial markets should honour salmon farmers who care about the long-term availability of ingredients. They can do that through a higher multiple on equity or on the credit side through green or blue bonds with sustainability targets”, he concluded.
The MarinTrust programme allows marine ingredients producers to gain recognition for their responsible sourcing, traceability and production. “The Factory Standard covers the key data elements which ensure that raw materials can be verified as to their origin, including fishery, supplier, and farm. The Chain of Custody Standard’s clauses include include supplier approval and monitoring systems including traders, agents / brokers with batch control” Libby Woodhatch, Executive chair, explained.
Those assurances offered by the MarinTrust programme are of particular interest to Salmon Group, a network for small and medium-sized fish farmers in Norway, accounting for approximately 13% of Norway’s total production volume. “The SG-feed – Salmon Group’s proprietary feed recipe, is made of high marine content – FIFO/FFDR < 1, novel ingredients, with a low carbon footprint profile” Christine Lyngsgård Larsen, Chief Procurement Officer at Salmon Group, explained.
Biomar and Skretting manufacture the SG-Feed. Jorge Diaz, Sustainability Director at Skretting, confirmed that traceability is fundamental and emphasised its critical role in providing assurances regarding the use of circular ingredients. The company applies due diligence processes to track fby-products back to their sources. Additionally, it recognises MarinTrust’s Version3 standard, which enhances the use of fish by-products.
Customers increasingly demand full traceability, not only for transparency but also to assess the environmental impact of raw materials. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) plays a key role in this. It helps quantify the environmental footprint of ingredients across their entire lifecycle—from harvest to production and final use. “At IFFO, we collect data among our members as part of a dedicated LCA work which started a few years ago, using a shared metric system. By aligning with international standards in data collection and interpretation, and reporting results to the GFLI database, we want to enable informed decision-making about feed ingredients use and impacts” Brett Glencross, technical Director at IFFO, concluded.
