Salmon has become more expensive than other protein options in recent years, which has placed heavy pressure on the industry to justify those premium prices, according to Cargill President and Aqua Nutrition Group Leader Helene Ziv-Douki.
Speaking at the 2024 North Atlantic Seafood Forum in Bergen, Norway, Ziv-Douki said Cargill is convinced sustainability will be key to justifying prices.
Within the scope of sustainability, she said, the primary focus areas are fish welfare, including reduced mortalities; enhanced traceability; and maintained high quality.
“Nutrition is part of the solution,” Ziv-Douki told NASF delegates. “When we think about sustainability, having the optimal feed-conversion ratio [FCR] of 0.9 is the dream we all have [current rates hover around 1.25]. If we could produce and continue to grow our salmon with that optimal FCR and have much less mortality, that’s the best way to achieve sustainability and justify the premium we have over other proteins.”
To achieve this task, Ziv-Douki said a bigger emphasis needs to be placed on the biological performance of fish.
“We believe, together with our partners in farming and our partners in [feed] ingredients, we need to do a better job in understanding the biology of salmon. Instead of picking ingredients and making feed, we want to go into precise nutrition,” she said. “This means understanding the impact of every single ingredient, its value to the salmon, and what it means to every single farm because each farm is different and is bound by different biological conditions.”
That precision will allow farmers to reduce feed inputs and expenditure, allowing them the freedom to then place more focus on effective nutrition, Ziv-Douki said.
Regarding ingredients, she confirmed Cargill sees great potential in algae oils as complements to traditional marine ingredients.
Ziv-Douki also noted there’s some 86,000 metric tons (MT) of land animal byproducts available from Norway’s poultry and pork sectors, which the aquaculture value chain isn’t utilizing because of issues it has run into justifying it in the value chain.
“But [using these] would be another fantastic way to be sustainable,” she said.
Besides issues of mortality and alternative ingredients, solutions must be found to the growing problem of sea lice, she said.
“Cargill is working really hard on that, as a lot of us are. There again, we need to work together, sharing knowledge as an industry,” she said. “It’s going to take all of us working together throughout the salmon value chain. Our biggest challenges are also our biggest opportunities, and it’s up to all of us to solve them and continue the growth of salmon.”
