IFFO’s China Market Analyst attended Mysteel’s fishmeal workshop held in Qingdao City on 17 April 2025, together with more than 120 Chinese delegates, mostly Chinese fishmeal importers, aquafeed producers and domestic fishmeal and fish oil producers. The half-day workshop included four presentations with insights into the global market of fishmeal and fish oil supply and demand (a presentation delivered by IFFO), domestic production of marine ingredients, import outlook and quality, domestic fishmeal demand and formulation. The event concluded with a panel discussion among two local fishmeal importers, two aqua feed producers and one market analyst from Mysteel.
The fishmeal session is part of Mysteel 8th Grain, Oil and Feed Industry Conference on April 15th – 17th, which includes a full-day meeting on grain, on April 16th. The Mysteel conference was prior to the 2025 China Feed Industry Expo (April 18th – 20th) organized by China Feed Industry Association.
Mysteel, founded in 2000, is one of the leading commodity data and service providers in China. The data and services cover ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, energy and chemical industry, building materials, and agricultural products, and extend to new energy, new materials, and renewable resources. As an independent third-party organisation, Mysteel provides multi-dimensional data centered around pricing. As a listed company in China, Mysteel has data cooperation with China official authorities such as the National Bureau of Statistics and Ministry of Commerce.
China's fishmeal output
Mr. Peng Han, Deputy General Manager, Zhejiang Wfull Marine Bio-tech Co., Ltd presented on domestic fishmeal output: after a temporary increase in 2023, domestic output in 2024 was reported lower and at the same level as in 2022. Whole fish raw materials used in fishmeal production consisted of anchovy, mackerel and sardines captured along the coastline but other species such as sand eel, hairtail, harengulazunast and Schedophilus maculatus are also used.
Fishmeal imports
Mr Changchun Li, General Manager, Tianjin Jinhualiang Import and Export Trade Co., Ltd looked at fishmeal imports. Tianjin Jinhualiang Trade specializes in imports of fishmeal, chicken meal, meat and bone meal, whey powder, soybean meal, rapeseed meal and other feed ingredients. In 2024 the company imported about 90,000 mt of fishmeal from countries including Peru, Chile, Ecuador. “Fishmeal is widely used in land animal farming and aquaculture thanks to a balanced composition of amino acids and other functions such as palatability. Average fishmeal inclusion rate in the global aquafeed is 10-15%” he commented.
Fishmeal consumption
Mr. Lun Huang, Purchase Director of Animal-Based Protein Feed Ingredients, Tongwei Agricultural Development Co., Ltd China, addressed fishmeal consumption pattern and feed formulation. The trade war between China and USA could potentially lead to a domestic supply gap of chicken meal at 160,000 -180,000 mt. and Chinese feed producers may have to look for substitutes such as pork meal, low-protein fishmeal and alternative sourcing countries such as Brazil. “China’s annual fishmeal usage has been between 2.1 -2.3 million mt in the past four years. Aquafeed producers are having higher requirements on fishmeal quality indicators to ensure product quality and enhance market competitiveness” he stated.
Considering the declining and aging population, Mr. Huang highlighted that feed consumption is showing a downtrend. “However, fishmeal remains the king of animal-based proteins, and the soybean meal is the king of plant-based proteins. The substitution strategy is limited to a partial replacement based on different features of these protein and price spreads” he noted.
“The future of aquafeed production is in precise nutrition by using AI modeling, allowing for feed ingredients to be fully utilised”, he concluded.