Marine Ingredients

Marine ingredients in feed

Marine ingredients like fishmeal and fish oil play an important role in fish diets. Whether wild or farmed, these foods provide salmon with long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) that support optimal health, immunity, and development.  

Responsible use of marine ingredients can also result in: 

• Lower carbon footprint due to minimal transport and processing requirements 

• Lower land use than plant-based alternatives 

What’s more, these natural marine ingredients offer high digestibility, which helps reduce waste and improve feed efficiency — two key factors in responsible farming. 

However, sourcing of marine ingredients must be carefully managed and sourcing decisions must be made to protect wild fish populations and preserve global food security. While nearly 80% of marine fish landings today come from biologically sustainable stocks, that picture isn’t consistent worldwide. In regions where fisheries management is weak or absent, stock health is often poor and deteriorating. That’s why responsible sourcing — backed by strong policies and effective governance — is essential.

Approaches to sustainable sourcing

• Ensuring all marine ingredients from forage fisheries are certified according to third party certification schemes such as MSC or Marin Trust.
• Maintaining our position that no marine ingredients come from illegal, unreported or unregulated fisheries.
• Working towards complying with the latest ASC Feed Standard for fish meal and fish oil amounts in feed.
• Working with the BAP Standard which from June 1, 2025 states that 75% of marine ingredients must come from certified sources our Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs).
• Utilizing more by-products to increase circularity from other sectors to turn waste into resource.
• Ensuring all krill are harvested responsibly to preserve stocks, under strict supervision in line with regulated catch limits set by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. Any instance of bycatch is unacceptable and should result in immediate changes to processes and best practices by certification bodies to prevent another incident and to ensure responsible practices are not compromised.
• Supporting the creation of marine protected areas, including no-fishing areas in the Antarctic.
• Continuing to evaluate alternative ingredients to replicate the nutritional benefits krill provide, such as algae.
• Evaluating ESG risks in our supply chain using our ESG Feed Risk Assessment Tool developed in partnership with WWF.

Alternative sources of omega-3 fatty acids

Long-chain polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acids in feed are essential nutrients for normal development and health in salmon and for the product quality of salmon. Omega-3 fatty acids, usually obtained from fish oil in salmon feed, can also be found in algae or non-marine sources such as from crops like canola. There is a great deal of innovation happening around the world to see if we can turn such alternatives into commercially viable options, which would allow us to maintain the high levels of omega-3 fatty acids in our feed, while reducing the use of marine ingredients.

In 2015, GSI and its associated feed companies launched a global tender to help identify viable sources of omega-3 fatty acids. The tender was highly successful in highlighting the growing industry need for novel resources and prompted a significant increase in the variety and number of options available to the industry. The industry feed companies are now working with multiple providers to start the incorporation of these resources into industry feeds.

Some examples include:

• Biomar and Agronutris partner on black soldier fly meal
• Cargill launches plant-based fish oil alternative
• Salmofood trialling alternative raw materials for a fish-free feed
• Skretting partners with Veramaris to offer algae oil based feed