IFFO director general Andrew Mallison says the report 'gives an overview of who we are, what we have delivered and what we are trying to achieve'.

Fishmeal body unveils first ever annual report

The IFFO, which represents the fishmeal, fish oil and wider marine ingredients industry worldwide, has published its first ever annual report.

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The report gives summaries of the IFFO’s core areas of work in 2016, including stakeholder engagement, technical projects and market research. It will be presented to IFFO members at this week’s annual meeting in Barcelona, which will be attended by 157 members from 27 countries.

The report highlights a busy year for IFFO, with three hosted member events, attended by 869 delegates in total; and 90 market reports, 24 of which focused on the fast growing Chinese market.

IFFO continued its efforts in driving research for the industry, with the completion of a Stirling University study on byproduct use in fishmeal and fish oil production.

An IFFO statement noted: “The project was commissioned in 2014 to provide an analysis of raw material availability and estimates for the global quantity of fishmeal and fish oil that could be produced assuming that all byproduct could be utilised as raw material.

“Nearly 20 million tonnes of raw material are used annually in the production of marine ingredients, but the model showed an estimated 35 million tonnes available for marine ingredients production, should all byproduct be collected. This increases to a total of 45 million tonnes being available in ten years’ time. The figures provided by this research will help to inform discussions about the future development of the industry, and are important in emphasising the increasing contribution that byproduct will make to raw material supply.”

Dangerous goods

Other activities the IFFO engaged in during 2016 included representing members at the United Nations Economic and Social Council’s Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods, the International Maritime Organisation (antioxidants), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (data and statistics) and the European Commission during our work on the reauthorisation of ethoxyquin in the EU.

IFFO director general Andrew Mallison said: “This report is intended to give an overview of who we are, what we have delivered in 2016 and what we are trying to achieve in future. We look forward to producing more reports of this kind in the future to draw together all IFFO’s important work.”

The full report can be read here.