Fish meal

Fish meal

Fish meal, or fishmeal, is a commercial product mostly made from fish that are not generally used for human consumption; a small portion is made from the bones and offal left over from processing fish used for human consumption, while the larger percentage is manufactured from wild-caught, small marine fish; either unmanaged by-catch[1] or sometimes sustainable fish stocks.It is powder or cake obtained by drying the fish or fish trimmings, often after cooking, and then grinding it. If the fish used is a fatty fish it is first pressed to extract most of the fish oil.

Fish used

Fishmeal can be made from almost any type of seafood, but is generally manufactured from wild-caught, small marine fish that contain a high percentage of bones and oil, and are usually deemed not suitable for direct human consumption. The fish caught for fishmeal purposes solely are termed "industrial". Other sources of fishmeal are from bycatch and byproducts of trimmings made during processing (fish waste or offal) of various seafood products destined for direct human consumption.

The main fish sources by country are:

Chile: anchovies, horse mackerel

China: various species

Denmark: pout, sandeel, sprat

European Union: pout, capelin, sand eel, and mackerel

Iceland and Norway: capelin, herring, blue whiting

Japan: sardine, pilchard, sauries, mackerels

Peru: anchovies

South Africa: pilchard

Thailand: various species

United States: menhaden, pollock

It takes 4 to 5 tons of fish to produce one ton of fish meal; about 6 million tons of fish are harvested each year solely to make fish meal.