The rise of fish oil: From feed to human nutritional supplement

ABSTRACT

This article tells the story of how fish oil has gone from an inferior to a premium oil product. With the growth of aquaculture, fish oil became a valuable feed component. Its value increased further as the belief in the health benefit of Omega-3 opened the market for direct human consumption through nutritional supplements. Strong demand, limited supply growth and weaker substitution between Omega-3 and Omega-6 has led to diverging trends between fish oil and vegetable oil prices, with fish oil now a premium oil product. We also investigated how the salmon aquaculture industry has responded to the challenge of rising fish oil prices. Concerted effort in nutrition and feed research is shown to have allowed a reduction in the share of fish oil in feed from around 25% in the early 2000s to around 12% today. This substitution effort has allowed salmon production to grow without using substantially more fish oil.