Kvarøy salmon farm. (Photo: Kvarøy)

Innovative feed produces greener farmed salmon

UNITED STATES
Monday, February 01, 2016, 10:00 (GMT + 9)

Two front-runner Norwegian fish farmers, Kvarøy and Selsøyvik, working together with Blue Circle Foods, BioMar and Whole Foods Market created an innovative farmed fish feed that conserves marine resources and reduces environmental contaminants in farmed salmon.

The project has led the first Norwegian-farmed salmon to earn a yellow “Good Alternative” rating from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s respected Seafood Watch programme.

The new salmon requires less than one pound of food to create a pound of fish, making it more environmentally friendly.

Unlike conventional feeds, which are produced with fish caught solely for feed, In the Blue is made with trimmings from wild-caught fish that are already bound for human consumption. The trimmings are pressed into oil that is cleaned to reduce environmental contaminants like heavy metals and PCBs (Polychlorinated biphenyls).

Environmental contaminants found in farmed fish are predominantly passed through feed ingredients, therefore, removing those substances from the oil keeps them out of salmon.

The trimmings are sourced from established wild-caught seafood processors, and the oil-cleaning technology is already common in producing fish oil supplements, Business Wire informed.

The salmon is then sold at Whole Foods Market, which implements continuous improvement process, including third-party-audited metrics for fish-in, fish-out ratios and contaminant levels among other standards.

Vidar Gundersen, Group Sustainability Manager for BioMar said, “We knew we’d have to make a significant investment of time and budget to create this custom feed for only two farms, but the risk was definitely worth it when we saw the difference this process could make for consumers, the industry and our planet.”

On her part, Carrie Brownstein, seafood quality standards coordinator for Whole Foods Market noted, “We developed ambitious yet achievable standards to create a model of more sustainable aquaculture, and we are thrilled to see In the Blue bring that to life with better farmed salmon for our shoppers, and a better example for the industry at large.”

The companies involved in the project hope the model created for farmed salmon feed can become common practice, and eventually expand to other species.

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