Saving Seafood

IFFO surveys find global fishmeal, fish oil production has increased so far in 2025

September 8, 2025 — The latest statistics gathered by IFFO – the Marine Ingredients Organization indicates global fishmeal and fish oil production through July 2025 is ahead of global production in the same period of 2024.

According to IFFO – which gathers survey data from members in Chile, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritius, Norway, the U.K., the U.S., Peru, South Africa, and Spain – global production of fishmeal through July 2025 is roughly 8 percent ahead of the same period of 2024. Fish oil production is also ahead of last year and has increased by around 5 percent.

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IFFO Members’ Meeting: Industry recovers from El Niño, charts future with byproducts and diversification

June 2, 2025 — IFFO’s Members’ Meeting, held in Madrid from May 13-14, 2025, brought together a record 267 delegates from 36 countries. This year, the main highlight was the industry’s recovery following the El Niño event.

During the meeting, Enrico Bachis, market research director at IFFO, presented 2025 projections for fishmeal and fish oil: 5.6 million tons of fishmeal and 1.2-1.3 million tons of fish oil. With Peruvian production recovering and other global producers maintaining stable levels, fishmeal and fish oil production are expected to remain consistent in 2025.

However, El Niño impacted more than just production levels, it also drove structural change in the industry. “This year, we saw Cooke acquiring Copeinca, and Centinela was acquired by Exalmar. Last year, another Peruvian company was also sold. Some companies are better positioned to withstand fishing bans, so after El Niño, we are seeing consolidation in the industry,” Bachis said.

Read the full article at Aquafeed.com

IFFO responds to conflict-of-interest claims regarding sustainability initiatives

July 18, 2024 — IFFO has responded to a report accusing the organization as being rife with conflicts of interest.

The report by environment-focused news website DeSmog, “Revealed: Industry-led West Africa Fishery Protection Measures Marred By ‘Massive Conflicts of Interest,” accused IFFO’s sustainability initiatives, including the Global Roundtable on Marine Ingredients and the MarinTrust certification program – ostensibly independent but founded by IFFO in 2009 – as protecting industry interests over local communities in West Africa, where MarinTrust and IFFO members have established a fishery improvement project in Mauritanian waters that has been criticized as not achieving significant progress.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Global fishmeal production down 27 percent in Q1 2024, but trending positive for rest of year

May 12, 2024 — Global fishmeal production decreased approximately 27 percent within the first three months of 2024, compared to the same period in 2023.

The decline was driven by the the second fishing season in Peru’s North-Central region in 2023, which had a below-average quota. That lower quota lead to reduced catches at the start of 2024, according to IFFO, The Marine Ingredients Organization.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

IFFO reports higher fishmeal supply, but lower demand in China

May 15, 2023 — Global fishmeal production in 2023 through March was up 36 percent year-over-year, according to IFFO – The Marine Ingredients Organization.

IFFO, which tracks fishmeal production in Peru, Chile, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the United States, Africa, and Spain, reported improved availability of raw material, bolstered by a late start to the second fishing season in the north-central area of Peru.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

IFFO, SFP convene roundtable to improve sustainability of global fishmeal, fish oil sector

June 29, 2022 — Amidst the backdrop of continuing growth in global demand for fishmeal and fish oil products, IFFO, the international trade body that represents the marine ingredients industry, and the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership are advancing the sustainability of the sector through a pre-competitive platform that has engagement from across the sustainable seafood movement.

At the 2022 North Atlantic Seafood Forum in Bergen, Norway, on 22 June, stakeholders from the various groups involved with the Global Roundtable on Marine Ingredients – which include Olvea, BioMar, Cargill, Skretting, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, Marin Trust, the Global Seafood Alliance, Nestlé, the Federation of European Aquaculture Producers, and the recently added Marine Stewardship Council – gave an update on the progress the roundtable has made since it was formed in October 2021.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Petter Johannessen Q&A: IFFO’s director general on developing the feed ingredients landscape

April 27, 2022 — The aquaculture feed sector is seeing the development of new inputs with the potential to improve the sustainability and availability of its product. While these new innovations can contribute to meeting the needs of a growing population, the buzz around such opportunities overshadows the importance of – and innovation in – traditional inputs like fishmeal, which still holds the greatest potential to efficiently deliver a nutrient-rich, sustainable feed to the aquaculture marketplace.

Petter Martin Johannessen joined IFFO, the international trade body that represents the marine ingredients industry, in 2018 as director general. He will be a featured speaker for the Seafood Expo Global conference session “Beyond the buzz: Developing a healthy, sustainable feed,” taking place on 28 April from 10:30 – 11:30. Here, Johannessen shares his thoughts on what the future holds for marine ingredients.

SeafoodSource: What role do marine ingredients play in the market now, and what role do you see the industry playing in the future?

Johannessen: The role of marine ingredients in supporting the growth of aquaculture is well known for being the foundational ingredients that underpinned the development of the sector worldwide. Still today, more than 70 percent of fishmeal and fish oil production are used by aquaculture because of an unmatched combination of properties: nutritional profile (long chain omega-3s, protein, vitamins and minerals), palatability, digestibility, volumes (approximately 5 million metric tons [MT] of fishmeal and 1 million MT of fish oil are produced each year), and prices.

Based on the United Nations’ FAO estimates, aquaculture production could more than double and reach 140 million MT by 2050. With more and more feed ingredients required to support this growth, marine ingredients are increasingly used at strategic stages of the production cycle, where critical nutrients are indispensable. Increasing marine ingredient production into the future is expected through the better use of fishery and aquaculture by-products, which already make up one third of marine raw materials used to produce fishmeal and fish oil.

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FCR and FIFO are out, FFDR and LCA are in – aquaculture’s new sustainability metrics taking hold

February 24, 2022 — The aquaculture industry – and the non-governmental organizations that scrutinize it – rely on complex tools to calculate the impact, effectiveness, and value of marine ingredients to the aquaculture industry.

IFFO, the international trade body that represents the marine ingredients industry, recently completed a review of the primary metrics used to analyze the sector, using the latest available data, reviewed the industry’s performance over the last 20 years.

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TASA CEO Gonzalo de Romaña wins term as IFFO president

February 2, 2022 — Gonzalo de Romaña, the CEO of Lima, Peru-based fishmeal and fish oil producer Tecnológica de Alimentos (TASA), has won election to serve as president of the IFFO Board of Directors. His term began 1 January.

IFFO – The Marine Ingredients Organization is an international trade body representing the marine ingredients industry. Its previous president was Anne Mette Baek, the executive director of Marine Ingredients Denmark, who served a two-year term.

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IFFO’s Brett Glencross: Maximum sustainable yield strategy best management solution

December 2, 2021 — Fisheries management using maximum sustainable yields (MSY) is key to maintaining healthy stocks, according to Brett Glencross, the technical director of IFFO, The Marine Ingredients Organization.

The global fishmeal and fish oil industry has become increasingly sustainable as many of the world’s developed nations have put MSY limits in place, and as an increasing number of seafood companies make the use of sustainably certified ingredients a non-negotiable precondition of their sourcing policies, said Glencross, who was appointed to his position in May 2021.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource