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June 2021 Editorial

The marine ingredients sector is fortunate enough to be part of a dynamic environment with passionate people, always keen to share their knowledge and commitment to producing protein to feed the world, mitigating environmental impacts, and playing their role in local communities. This has been communicated very clearly over the last months through a variety of webinars where marine ingredients have been discussed, from the World Ocean Summit to Aquaculture UK’s webinar. It is fantastic to have been hearing from such a diverse audience on actions that are being taken to keep on driving positive change in the seafood sector.

As the discussion will continue over the next months and years, which will undoubtedly contribute to a better understanding of our industry, I look forward to the North Atlantic Seafood Forum starting on 8 June 2021. As I am convinced that collaboration is the new innovation, this is a key milestone to engage with the value chain.

We are all aware that the world is on a critical timeline when it comes to providing enough heathy food for the growing population, and we must look at the facts when it comes to the gap in accessing the volumes of raw materials which are required by 2030. Increased quantities of farmed fish are needed to feed an ever-growing population. Our estimates are that a total around 30 million tons additional aquafeedingredients over the period to 2030 are required, among which by-products resulting from fish processing (now at 31% of all fishmeal and fish oil combined) will continue to play an important part.

Fishmeal and fish oil are already recognised as strategic ingredients by the FAO. They will continue to be used strategically for their nutritional inputs, securing health, growth and welfare of fish, alongside other ingredients which will make up the gap in terms of volume but not in terms of nutrition.

 

Petter M Johannessen

 

In this month's edition of our newsletter, the following topics were addressed: