As part of Skretting’s longstanding commitment to safeguard the world’s oceans, the company announced Oct. 21 that it has allocated $2 million to enable the development of alternative aquaculture feed ingredients in 2020.

This voluntary pledge will be formally made at the sixth Our Ocean Conference (OOC), being held in Oct. 23-24 in Oslo, Norway. The pledge aims to create clear pathways for these much-needed innovations to reach sufficient scale in order that they can deliver long-term value to aquaculture supply chains and end-consumers, Skretting said.

The U.N. Food & Agriculture Organization forecasts that by 2030 there will be a 30 million metric ton increase in aquaculture production, which will require an additional 45 mmt of feed raw materials, the company said in its announcement.

To ensure that the aquaculture sector can maximize its contribution to sustainably feeding a population that will reach 9.5 billion people by 2050, there is a fundamental need to overcome the reliance on formulating feeds from finite marine ingredients, Skretting said.

While the application of sustainable novel ingredients in aquafeeds — both through replacement and interchange — are recognized as a viable means to achieve this aim, the biggest challenge facing innovations in this space is reaching commercial scale, according to the company.

Skretting said it is focused on increasing the flexibility of the macro- and micro-ingredient inclusion in its aquaculture feeds. A key aspect of this ambition is development of the circular bioeconomy through the utilization of proteins generated from the use of waste streams as well as byproducts and co-products. This progress has already seen the group establish working relationships with and provide support to a number of start-up innovators.

“For aquaculture to meet its full potential, the sector will need access to sufficient volumes of these novel ingredients. At the same time, Skretting recognizes that these technologies are only able to reach scale through collaborative efforts,” said Trygve B. Lea, sustainability manager at Skretting. “This Our Ocean commitment is focused on overcoming this significant barrier and providing a fast-track to market for these innovations. The hope is for the first few novel raw material sources to achieve scale-up in 2020.”

This is not the first OOC commitment to be made by Skretting. In 2017, in partnership with the Peruvian National Fisheries Society, Cargill Aqua Nutrition and the Centre for Development & Sustainable Fisheries, it announced the launch of a comprehensive Fishery Improvement Project (FIP) in Northern Humboldt Current System. Skretting said this FIP is aimed at strengthening the research, management and sustainability in applying the ecosystem approach to the Peruvian anchovy (Engraulis ringens) stock, which is one of the most important single species fisheries worldwide.

Through Skretting’s support of the Our Ocean 2019 program, Skretting global operations director Erlend Sødal will join a panel of experts to focus on the topic of foods and livelihoods from the ocean. Specifically, this group will look at how to ensure access to sufficient, safe and nutritious foods from the ocean that meet dietary needs and food preferences for a growing population, as well as how to build food value chains that can deliver from healthy oceans to healthy people, the announcement said.

“It is a huge honor to be asked to contribute to this world-class forum, with the conference providing an ideal platform to share global insights, experiences and ambitions from Skretting and the aquaculture sector with a broad group of ocean leaders. It is clear that the farming of protein-rich, healthy aquatic foods such as fish and shrimp has a crucial role to play in meeting the nutritional needs of the planet, but alongside capitalizing on aquaculture’s incredible potential, there’s also a fundamental obligation for all stakeholders to engage and make meaningful contributions to marine health,” Sødal said.

OOC 2019 has been organized by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and will be hosted by Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide. The conference will be attended by approximately 500 invited delegates from around the world, including heads of state, financial institutions, young leaders, civil society organizations and representatives from the scientific community.