This piece was first published in Feed and Additive, on 30 September 2026
Marine-sourced ingredients remain essential to modern aquaculture. However, the future of these ingredients is being shaped by increasing supply constraints, climate variability, and evolving sustainability prospects. As demand continues to rise in aquaculture, human nutrition, and pet food, the industry must strike a balance between resource efficiency, responsible fisheries management, and increased utilization of by-products. To ensure the continuity of fishmeal and fish oil supply for future food systems, it is vital to understand the interconnected trends.
Fishmeal and fish oil are still crucial for aquaculture, but supply constraints, changing demand, and sustainability pressures are shaping today's market. Understanding production trends, trade-offs, and resource efficiency is key to ensuring the sourcing of marine-sourced ingredients for future food systems.
Fishmeal and fish oil, as essential inputs for aquaculture feed, continue to drive the growth of aquaculture. The average production for the last 10 years is 5.2 million tons of fishmeal and 1.2 million tons of fish oil. This stability reflects improvements in fisheries management, reduced reliance on wild fish due to precision feeding of aquaculture, improvements in feed formulation, and increased contribution from by-product processing. According to the FAO's "State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2026" report, the growth in aquaculture has not led to the same increase in demand for marine-derived ingredients.
In the first months of 2026, the availability of raw materials was restricted, especially in Peru, the world's major supplier, which accounts for about 20 percent of global production. El Niño, a natural phenomenon triggered by the release of ENSO, leads to precautionary anchovy quotas reductions and temporary fishing bans due to the high proportion of juvenile fish. While this indicates a healthy biomass, biological resources must also be secured in the coming years, and the suspension of fishing activities is seen as an understandable measure by the industry.
THE INCREASING ROLE OF BY-PRODUCTS AND CIRCULARITY One of the most important structural trends in the production of marine-sourced components is the increasing use of by-products.
In fact, the basis of the industry was to repurpose unused materials and keep the nutrients they contained in the food chain. However, with the growth of aquaculture and the development of technology, more side streams are becoming available, and this amount is expected to increase in the future. The use of more advanced equipment on ships, which ensures uninterrupted cold chain maintenance, also contributes to this development. Materials that were previously underutilized are now being converted into high-value nutritional inputs. Globally, about 35 percent of fishmeal production and 57 percent of fish oil production are now derived from by-products; In Asia, these rates are even higher.
By-products are no longer a marginal source of additives; In an environment where the quantities of fish obtained through fishing are flat, it plays a central role in sustaining the supply. The amount of fish obtained through fishing has been in a narrow range since the late 1980s. This indicates that future supply increase should be met by more efficient use of resources rather than increasing the amount of catch.
DEMAND DYNAMICS: AQUACULTURE IS STILL AN IMPORTANT DRIVING FORCE
On the demand side, aquaculture maintains its decisive position. According to FAO's "2026 State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture" report, aquaculture is the fastest-growing food production system on a global scale, with a production of over 100 million tons in 2024. In the future, it is predicted that a large part of the growth in aquaculture production will be met by this sector.
Marine-derived ingredients remain essential ingredients for critical periods in the fish's life cycle. In particular, their amino acid profile, being rich in long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, and lacking anti-nutritional factors continue to make these ingredients critical for salmon and shrimp, as well as species such as eels and turtles raised in China, and other high-value farm-based aquaculture.
China is one of the most prominent examples of this demand dynamic. China, the world's largest aquaculture farmer, is expected to account for approximately 42 percent of global fishmeal consumption by 2034. However, the limited local supply in the country structurally leads to import dependency. According to IFFO's estimates, this causes a supply deficit of approximately 1.2 million tons of fishmeal and 80 thousand tons of fish oil annually in the region.
EVALUATION OF SUPPLY-DEMAND BALANCE Although
supply remains stable in the long term, short-term fluctuations, mostly caused by climatic conditions, create periodic mismatches between supply and demand. This tension is particularly pronounced in Asia, where aquaculture continues to grow rapidly, outpacing local marine-sourced raw material production. At the same time, global demand is diversifying, expanding beyond aquaculture and into human nutrition markets, particularly omega-3 concentrates (16% of global fish oil demand) and pet food (5% of fish oil demand according to IFFO estimates). There are also concerns about the future availability of the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA, which make up about a third of fish oil. At the heart of this lies environmental variability and ever-increasing demand across different sectors.
To read the full article, visit Marine-derived ingredients: Balance of supply, demand and sustainability - Feed & Additive Magazine