The Marine Ingredients Organisation (IFFO) has held its latest webinar bringing together industry experts to discuss market trends, nutrition, fish health, sustainability and climate change.
The event, held on 19 to 21 October, brought together IFFO’s 235 members from around the world and opened with a discussion on how better management and technology can enable a sixfold increase in the supply of food from the ocean.
“Our message is clear – blue foods should be considered as a key part of the global food system,” said Petter Johannessen, IFFO’s director general. “And with marine ingredients supporting the production of blue foods, it is obvious that marine ingredients should follow the same path. It is just impressive to think that with 1kg of marine raw materials, 5kg of farmed fish are produced,” he added.
The webinar also underlined the resilience of the Peruvian fishmeal and fish oil industry and the performance of the Chilean salmon market as well as the shrimp sector in the US, Ecuador and Vietnam.
By-products already make up one third of fishmeal and fish oil but more will come with the growth of the aquaculture sector, relieving pressure on the terrestrial environment, according to IFFO president Anne Mette Baek, who also highlighted the marine ingredients industry’s low carbon value chain.
Challenges such as IUU fishing, potential of new raw materials or life cycle assessments, must be addressed through a collective lens, according to IFFO. To this end, the Global Roundtable on Marine Ingredients has recently been launched by IFFO and the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership.
