Supermarket giant and salmon supplier Seachill explore sustainable aquaculture feed solutions.
In a press release, Tesco writes that it has been working in partnership with its salmon suppliers to encourage more widespread use of algal oil instead of fish oil.
Tesco suppliers have been testing the substitution, which it hopes will eventually replace fish oil across the entire supply chain, as part of the Little Helps Plan, a Tesco sustainability initiative aiming to ‘lead the industry in addressing the key sustainability challenges in our supply chain’.
“We have been working collaboratively with our key salmon suppliers to support them scale up the use of more sustainable feed ingredients, such as omega-3 rich algal oil. Encouragingly, one of our main suppliers in Norway has already started to supply us with some salmon that were partially fed with omega-3 oils from algal oil.”
“To build on this development, we are in the process of updating our own brand farmed salmon standards with targets to reduce the amount of wild-caught fish that is fed to the salmon we source. While this is a positive step, transitioning the entire aquaculture industry to more sustainable feeds such as algal oil will require the commitment from many businesses and organisations,” it wrote.
Seachill Corporate Social Responsibility Director Nigel Edwards said: “The salmon industry has grown rapidly over the last 30 years, with huge steps forward in feed efficiency and farming technology. But to grow further the industry needs novel sustainable sources of omega-3 oils, which are essential to both fish and human health. Algal oils are a natural solution and we are proud to work with the leading innovative salmon farmers and their partner feed producers to encourage investment in them and increase their use.”
