Fish meal is a product made from fish meat, trash fish, whole fish, fish head and bones or other by-products from fish processing. Currently, fish meal is produced from two main sources of raw materials: marine fish (saltwater fish) and pangasius (freshwater fish).
Fishmeal is one of the best sources of raw materials in the production of animal, poultry and seafood feed. Fishmeal contains many useful proteins, the protein content in fishmeal averages from 45-60%, some types are more than 70%. Protein from fishmeal is easy to digest, helping livestock grow quickly. The crude energy of fishmeal is about 4100-4200 kcal/kg.
The main role of fish meal
The composition of food today is very diverse. But in fact, ingredients to replace fishmeal such as vegetable protein, or soybean will cause livestock growth to be partially reduced. This begs the question of is there really a need to replace marine ingredients like fish meal?
Provided that the feed ingredients we are using are of sustainable origin, then whether it is fishmeal, fish oil or by-products, even ingredients that are not derived from marine animal protein, will not affect the inherent order of the food – food chain. In recent years, we have seen a significant increase in marine components from by-products. Many forecasts indicate that this industry will grow strongly and exceed the volume of many other substitutes.
The status of Southeast fishery production
From 2014 to 2018, the worldwide trend of fishery production from both capture fisheries and aquaculture has been increasing steadily at an average rate of 3.9 million tons per year or about 2.6 % annually. Countries from Asia are among the major fish producers, contributing about 51.2 % to the total fishery production during the past 5 years.
In the Southeast Asian region, fishery production increased from 42.1 million tons in 2014 to 46.5 million tons in 2018 with an annual average rate of increase of 1.1 million tons or 2.5%, while the region’s total contribution to the world’s total fishery production in 2018 was approximately 21.9 %.
With high sea fish production from fishery industry, Southeast Asia is good at manufacturing fish meal with various level of quality. Sea fish meal is produced with good price as well. Price of fish meal from Southeast Asia is more competitive than other regions’ suppliers.
Read more: High-quality fish meal supply from Vietnam