Do retailers need to be more upfront about what’s gone into the aquaculture products they’re selling? A new report insists that they do.
The farming of fish and other seafoods is widely advocated as a means to safeguard food security. There’s good reason for this conviction. In terms of global output, aquaculture continues to grow faster than any other major food supply sector, and by 2030 it’s expected to provide at least 60% of the seafood that we – the human race – consumes.
The culturing of healthy and nutritious aquatic species has many merits. The sector has also overcome multiple production obstacles, and met the rising consumer demand for its products. But there are still those that have issues with the industry, and positioned high amongst the most common misgivings is the use of wild-caught species in aquaculture diets.
Typically, these feeds contain a rich mix of the marine ingredients fishmeal and fish oil, agricultural crops such as wheat, soy, rapeseed, sunflower and faba, and by-products from human food processing. As has been well documented by World Fishing & Aquaculture, there’s been a great deal of progress in terms of fish feed innovation. Indeed, whereas a decade ago, these would often contain up to 70% fishmeal and fish oil, these ingredients are now much more selectively used – focusing on specific stages of the production process. Nevertheless, as illustrated by the new report, “Caught Out: How UK retailers are tackling the use of wild fish in their aquaculture supply chains”, the use of wild fish in aquaculture diets remains a part of the value chain that sticks in the craw.
Published by the Changing Markets Foundation and environmental campaign group Feedback, Caught Out insists retailers could and should be doing a lot more to address this issue. It claims that UK consumers are eating around two-and-a-half times the amount of fish that they think when opting for farmed species.
As well as scoring the top 10 supermarkets according to the sustainability of the farmed seafood that they sell, the report has calculated that by eating 103,000 tonnes of the top six farmed fish species (including salmon, warmwater prawns and seabass) in 2019, the nation’s shoppers unwittingly consumed 177,000 tonnes of wild fish, simply because of the fishmeal and fish oil in their diet. It states that this equates to a hidden 172g of wild fish consumed for every 100g of farmed fish eaten, and that almost all of the former could have been eaten directly by people.
Engaging consumers
According to Changing Markets and Feedback, decades of awareness raising by marine charities means that the UK public is largely aware of the need to buy wild fish and seafood products that are not fished in unsustainable or illegal ways. On the flip-side, though, they point to there being little awareness of product origins or of different aquaculture methods. Their research also finds that shoppers have good reason to be confused, identifying that some farmed-seafood products are not clearly labelled as such or are inconsistently labelled, and that there’s no information about what farmed fish were fed.
In the wake of recent food scandals, there’s increased public concern about the origin of the food we are sold, says the report, adding that it’s vital UK supermarkets take responsibility for clear and transparent communication about the products on their shelves, and for ensuring the sustainability of their farmed-seafood supply chains.
“We feel that provenance and production labelling across farmed animal products should be improved, and aquaculture products are no exception,” Natasha Hurley of Changing Markets told WF&A. “One reason that there is generally very low consumer awareness of how farmed fish are produced is that supermarkets have been chary of providing clear information to their shoppers, preferring to hide behind vague marketing labels such as M&S’ ‘Lochmuir’ range.”
She continued, “We would like to see labelling that is transparent as to the country of production and producing company, method of farming and feed used, avoiding the use of vague terms such as ‘responsible’. Ideally, each supermarket would also disclose – probably via its website – how much wild fish is used in the diets of the farmed seafood it sells, and where this was sourced.”
Changing Markets is also calling on eco-labelling schemes such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) to stop certifying reduction fisheries and farmed fish reliant on the use of wild-caught fish for feed.
Deadline for action
Another of the report’s take home messages is that while a number of retailers stated that they’re looking to reduce the amount of fishmeal and fish oil used by their farmed fish suppliers in feed, none of them have set concrete, time-bound, targets for reduction.
“Tesco said it is working with one of its salmon suppliers to increase use of more sustainable feed components, such as algal oil. Waitrose said that it is involved in a number of projects looking at alternatives, including insects and microalgae. Sainsbury’s also said that it is working with a number of feed ingredient suppliers on alternatives including algae, insects and bioproteins. So while certain retailers are taking steps in the right direction, they need to set binding targets to ensure that the sector moves away from this highly unsustainable practice,” she said.
To this end, the report calls on retailers to commit to measures to phasing out the use of wild-caught fish in farmed-fish feed with a target to achieve this goal of no later than 2025. In addition, it urges them to commit to offering a wider range of seafood, including including a greater diversity of sustainably caught wild fish and farmed seafood that doesn’t rely on wild fish in feed, such as mussels.
It also wants them to adopt high standards of transparency and corporate policy on their suppliers, including full disclosure of suppliers – from source fisheries upwards, and to reduce their reliance on certification as a proxy for sustainability by developing their own robust, transparent standards.
Hurley also insists that there would be consumers for around 90% of the fish currently being diverted into fishmeal and fish oil production, which means that the catch wouldn’t lose value or fishers lose jobs. Last year, Changing Markets conducted on-the-ground investigations in three fishmeal and fish oil-producing countries (India, Indonesia and Vietnam). This analysis found that, far from securing livelihoods, the exponential growth of the industry is diverting a key source of protein away from some of the world’s poorest communities, she explained.
“Our research for this report revealed how heavily reliant retailers and aquafeed producers are on certification as a proxy for sustainability. However, our investigation last year found that fishmeal, fish oil and aquafeed plants with proven links to highly unsustainable fishing practices are certified by, or are members of, IFFO. We would argue that fishing for feed is inherently unsustainable, and therefore reduction fisheries should not be certified at all.”
Essentially, Changing Markets and Feedback maintain that the supermarkets’ role as intermediaries between aquaculture producers and the buying public means they are the most powerful players in the market, and as such, they have “a critical responsibility” to hold their suppliers to account, and to guarantee that ocean stewardship is upheld. Also comes the suggestion that they should use their “huge power” to shape public tastes and buying choices, and to educate consumers on the impact of different types of seafood consumption. It’s a compelling argument.
