Aquaculture is expanding rapidly as global demand for seafood grows, but it faces a major challenge: feed. Traditionally, farmed fish such as salmon rely on fishmeal and fish oil sourced from wild-caught fish, a practice that puts pressure on ocean stocks.
ONE EARTH is addressing this challenge by producing fish feed ingredients from residual biomass, specifically, omega-3 rich oils/microbial biomass. These include microalgae cultivated on whey and CO₂, as well as PUFAs-rich microbial cells grown on fermented cheese whey. The result is nutrient-rich feed that doesn’t rely on harvesting other fish, effectively closing the loop between land-based and marine food systems.
The potential impact is significant. Industry experience has already shown that replacing fish oil with microalgal oil in aquafeed can have a massive conservation effect, over the past five years, this shift has helped prevent the capture of more than 1.5 million tonnes of wild fish. By embracing such alternatives, the aquaculture sector can grow without increasing pressure on wild fisheries, in line with EU sustainable aquaculture guidelines.
EU policy actively supports the use of non-fish feed ingredients, such as algae oils, insect meal, and land-animal proteins, to make aquaculture more environmentally friendly. ONE EARTH’s waste-to-feed innovations contribute directly to this transition, while also reducing the carbon footprint of aquaculture feed, as algae- or microbe-derived ingredients can have lower emissions than fish oil production.
This approach delivers a clear benefit: “fish-free fish feed” that supports ocean conservation while enabling sustainable protein production. For seafood companies, feed producers, and environmental policymakers, it’s a compelling example of how European research is shaping aquaculture into a solution for the future rather than a driver of overfishing.