Aller Aqua is phasing out the use of South American soya to focus on purchasing from European markets where its factories are based.
Sustainability in the aquaculture value chain begins with the raw materials used in the feed. Aller Aqua wants customers to have high quality feeds with stable performance, but also with minimal environmental impact.
"In recent years, there has been a lot of focus on soya produced in South America, and the derived effects thereof, such as deforestation and cultivation methods," explained Henrik Halken, group vice president, Aller Aqua Group.
"In our work to continuously increase sustainability and purchasing raw materials in proximity to our European factories, we will now phase out the use of soya from South America. This is completely in line with EU initiatives supporting an increased production of protein crops to increase our self-sufficiency – and thereby reduce import.
"We work actively with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in all our factories. To ensure the largest possible positive impact on our environmental footprint, we continuously look at our raw material portfolio. During recent years, we have increasingly used various by-products, which, besides reducing waste, maintain the feed quality. We also pride ourselves in having a specialised protein factory in Germany, which produces high value proteins based on local raw materials.
"Additionally, it is positive that aquaculture has one of the lowest CO2 emissions compared to other animal productions."
