Sustainable marine ingredients

Nutreco works to protect the ocean and ensure that fish stocks intended for direct or indirect human consumption are caught within clearly defined, sustainable limits.

 

Our targets

  1. Source 100% of marine ingredients from sources audited and certified by MarinTrust or the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).

  2. Ensure that where MarinTrust- or MSC-certified marine ingredients are not available, producers of all non-certified ingredients will be engaged in a Fishery Improvement Project (FIP) that publicly reports developments annually.

  3. Ensure that all marine ingredients produced from species caught for the sole purpose of producing a feed ingredient will come from IFFO Responsible Supply certified sources of whole fish or from fisheries that participate in a recognized program to improve and eventually become certified.

How we do it

Nutreco and Skretting have published a  Marine Ingredients Responsible Sourcing Policy that will be used as a practical guide for deciding which marine ingredients can be sourced for our global operations.

Our progress

A total of 77% of our whole fish and trimmings are certified or from an FIP, a decrease of 7% compared to 2022, which can be explained by:

  • Several fisheries we work with lost their certification.
  • We are seeing few fisheries entering FIPs with the ambition of being certified.
  • Existing FIPs could potentially not reach certification and be delisted as improvement projects.
  • We are seeing a lower overall amount of ingredients as a result of the fishing quota in Peru.
  • Market conditions and historically high prices for fish oil in 2023 had an impact on the total cost of feed and, therefore, on farming operations. This means that, in some cases, there’s a need to reduce the volume on certified ingredients to remain competitive in the market. We see this as a dilemma and recognise that the only way to move further on our sustainability ambition is through value chain collaboration and commitment, ensuring that the costs can be absorbed and shared across different players (suppliers, feed producers, farmers and retailers), as no single player can absorb the costs on its own.

Percentage whole fish and trimmings certified

Origin Marin Trust FIP Marin Trust MSC Total
2020 4% 43% 21% 69%
2021 10% 46% 24% 80%
2022 12% 58% 14% 84%
2023 20% 44% 14% 77%

Other topics:

Climate and footprint scope 1 & 2
Our scope 3 emissions
Responsible, novel and circular sourcing
Deforestation-free soy and palm oil
Novel ingredients
Circular feed
Sustainable marine ingredients