Purification of salmon feed
by GUSTAV-ERIK BLAALID, EDITOR gustav@fishfarmingxpert.com
Marine Harvest, in partnership with FF Skagen, has announced that they will clean the fish oil used in salmon feed production for toxins when they initiate their own feed production in Norway next year. This is a milestone in aquaculture. Fish oil can be purified of toxins, particularly PCBs, dioxins and other contaminants at a low price. One may ask why this has not been done long ago. Well, because the limits for these toxins are well within the limits set by the authorities. The argument has been that if one fears toxins in farmed salmon, one should be far more concerned about eating wild fish. And this is where the matter stood. Until now.
The effect of Marine Harvest’s decision is big. In Norway there has been a recurrent discussion over the past two years about the health effects of eating a lot of fatty fish, especially salmon. Those who cautioned against eating farmed salmon have been prominent people, including a physician at one of the largest hospitals. And she has received support from several holds. Even though these claims have been refuted by national professional experts in Norway, the media have been very concerned about the matter, and media in several European countries that have a large salmon import from Norway, including France, have also shown interest in this discussion. It is less important that the levels of toxins in wild fish like mackerel and herring are higher than in farmed salmon. It is farmed salmon that gets the negative focus. If it is possible to eliminate toxins at a reasonable price, we believe that Marine Harvest goes ahead and shows the way. That is great.
Just how Marine Harvest intends to exploit this fact, they have not said anything about. They will for many years to come be dependent on other suppliers to buy feed. Will they require that everybody that supplies feed to Marine Harvest purifies their oil? Yes, they probably will. And how are they intending to market this fish? Will we see two main products the day Marine Harvest begins to market its salmon that are virtually free of contaminants: “Salmon purified from toxins” and “Salmon not purified from toxins”? Hardly. That would be stupid. Salmon is still a generic commodity where to distinguish between these categories would be more negative for salmon in general than it would be positive for this one particular product.
This being said, we believe that salmon production is moving in this direction. Everybody will clean their oil for contaminants so that everybody has the same sales arguments. Marine Harvest is hardly going to clean fish oil only in Norway, but also for production in other countries.
For the seafood market, this is good news. For salmon producers it is extra good news. This means that they can put a product on the table that only very few food manufacturers can, i.e. a product that is virtually free of contaminants. Another good thing is that toxins with a long degradation are taken out of the food chain. This will serve as an important distinction between farmed and wild fish.
