fishmeal.org / Commodity / What is fishmeal
What is fishmeal
A dried, ground protein product made from whole fish or fish trimmings — dense, storable, and traded by the tonne.
Fishmeal is what happens when small, oily fish that few people eat directly are cooked, pressed, dried and milled into a shelf-stable protein powder. A good lot reads like a specification sheet rather than a foodstuff: sixty to sixty-eight percent crude protein, low moisture, tightly capped volatile nitrogen. It smells strongly of the sea, ships in bulk, and ends up mostly inside other animals.
The industry took shape in northern Europe and North America at the beginning of the nineteenth century, built at first on surplus catches that had no other market.[2] It expanded sharply in the twentieth century as intensive livestock farming spread, and again from the 1980s onward as shrimp and salmon farming turned fishmeal into the backbone of aquafeed. Peru's anchoveta fishery, rebuilt after the collapse of the early 1970s, made South America the centre of gravity of world supply.
| Sector | Role of fishmeal |
|---|---|
| Aquaculture | The dominant use — recent studies put around 60% of fishmeal demand in farmed-fish and shrimp feeds, where it lifts growth and feed conversion.[3] |
| Pigs & poultry | Traditional weaning-feed use: palatability and digestible protein for young animals. |
| Pet food | High-protein, highly digestible ingredient in premium formulations. |
Fishmeal is almost never produced alone. Pressing and separating cooked fish yields fish oil as the co-product[4] — pressed out of the same raw material, centrifuged free, and traded on its own account for aquafeed and omega-3 refining. The two products move together through the same factories, which is why the trade usually speaks of "fishmeal and fish oil" in one breath.
- Feed specification guidance (Sunrise Rendering, Oct 2026) — www.sunriserendering.com/fr/how-to-read-fish-meal-specification-protein- (accessed 2026-10-24)
- FAO fishmeal in animal feed (Seafood Network mirror) — seafood.media/snp/fishmeal.htm (accessed 2026-10-24)
- FAO: The production of fish meal and oil, 1. Introduction (X6899E) — www.fao.org/4/X6899e/X6899E02.htm (accessed 2026-10-24)
- Hakai Magazine history feature — hakaimagazine.com/news/boom-and-bust-all-at-once-the-fraught-modern-hist (accessed 2026-10-24)
- Péron 2010, Marine Policy (ScienceDirect) — www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0308597X1000028X (accessed 2026-10-24)
- FAO process documentation (X6899E) — openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/0695bbe2-aa69-4a8e-837f (accessed 2026-10-24)