Actually, There IS a Way to Convert Fish By-Products into Useful Products on a Small to Medium Scale
NOAA Fisheries recently published an article on “Feeds of the Future” about sustainable ways to produce ingredients for aquaculture. As stated in the article, as fish farming increases, the demand on the supply of fishmeal and fish oil, feed ingredients made from the by-products of wild caught fish sources, will continue to increase. Yet, the supply of these ingredients has not changed in 20 years.
According to the article:
“But at small and medium-sized operations (fish processing plants) there’s currently no economical way to do that, and the trimmings get landfilled or dumped back into the ocean. The amount of waste is tremendous. If all the fish trimmings that are currently discarded in Alaska were captured instead, it would be the second largest fishery in the state.”
High-shear extruders from Insta-Pro International have been used for years to help small to medium sized producers turn by-products into valuable products. Rather than disposing of this as waste, a new revenue stream can be developed. Also, environmental concerns and regulations may reduce or eliminate the practice of dumping fish waste into landfills or bodies of water.
The economics of all of this, mentioned in the article, cannot be assessed here and will be different everywhere. However, consider that wild fish catches have been flat for decades, while global seafood demand is increasing, according to one calculation, by more than 2.5 metric tons every minute. This is largely driven by increased population growth.
So, in conclusion, as fish farming continues to grow to meet the growing global demand for seafood, consider turning your valuable fish by-products into high-quality, sterile feed ingredients for farmed fish.
Insta-Pro International does, in fact, have solutions for small to medium producers.
