Biomar, Skretting and Cargill look to ways to push novel oils into the salmon feed supply chain

15-Jun-2016 - Last updated on 16-Jun-2016 at 08:50 GMT

Related tags Salmon Fish Aquaculture

The three leading feed companies have joined the global salmon initiative (GSI) as associate members.

“Ensuring future sustainability in the sourcing of our feed ingredients is a key focus area for the GSI, and it makes sense to work closely with Biomar, Cargill, and Skretting who are highly valued members of our supply chain and share our vision of improved industry sustainability”, said Alf-Helge Aarskog, CEO Marine Harvest and co-chair of the GSI feed taskforce.

“By having them join the GSI as associate members, it allows us to collaborate on important issues, to share knowledge and expertise, and overall better position us to make the progress needed,” he continued.

The GSI said the farmed salmon sector has made great progress in reducing its dependency upon wild fish, so far achieving a reduced fish-in-fish-out ratio of over 75% since the early days of the industry. Its feed and nutrition taskforce aims to improve that ratio by identifying and implementing new dietary approaches.

One aspect of these new approaches, said the GSI executive, is to work with potential suppliers of novel oils rich in DHA and EPA to help supplement current fish oil use and to use the partnership with the feed companies to help integrate these novel oils into the supply chain as soon as possible.

“The feed tender initiated by the GSI last year identified a number of viable sources of novel oils for salmon feed, and it has sent a strong market signal that there is clear demand and need for such resources,” said Einar Wathne, president of Cargill Aqua Nutrition and co-chair of the GSI feed taskforce. “We now plan to use the commercial relations we hold as feed companies to propose opportunities for the integration of these novel oils," he added.

Background

The GSI was established in 2013 by global farmed salmon producers focused on making significant progress on industry sustainability. Today, GSI comprises 12 companies, representing around 50% of the global salmon production industry.

Member companies are in diverse locations such as Australia, Canada, Chile, the Faroe Islands, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and the UK. Those signed up include Bakkafrost, Blumar, Cermaq, Compañía Pesquera Camanchaca, Empresas AquaChile, Grieg Seafood ASA, Huon Aquaculture, Los Fiordos, Marine Harvest, Multiexport Foods SA, New Zealand King Salmon and Ventisqueros.