Statement on the sourcing of aquafeed for farmed salmon in Scotland and Norway

Following our research and campaigning highlighting the supply of fish oil sourced from FAO 34 — the Major Fishing Area located off the coast of Northwest Africa — to the European feed industry, Feedback is issuing this statement in response to the industry’s response, including:   

• Salmon Scotland statement that it does not use marine ingredients sourced from West African fisheries; 

• MOWI’s statement that it has not sourced any raw materials from Mauritania since 2023; 

• Skretting statement that Skretting Norway did not purchase fish oil from Africa in 2023 or 2024 (although we note that according to a media report in November 2024, Skretting stated that it continued to source from the region). 

We are pleased that the industry has responded to the overwhelming evidence on the damaging impact of sourcing from this region. 

We remain extremely concerned about the ‘food-feed competition’ which is being driven by the global aquaculture industry in regions around the world as high-impact activities such as salmon and seabass farming continue to expand to serve high-income consumers in Europe, North America and Asia. 

We therefore reiterate our call to companies throughout the supply chain (feed ingredient and compound feed producers, farmed salmon companies, retailers and food service companies) to provide full transparency on their sourcing practices and to comply with the following set of demands: 

• Fish meal and fish oil (or products dependent on FMFO) should not be sourced from locations where its production is driving food-feed competition and exacerbating food insecurity and/ or exacerbating the risk of collapse of the marine ecosystem  

• Salmon producers must have clear policies on responsible feed sourcing, which exclude the sourcing of feed produced with ingredients that are driving food-feed competition and exacerbating food insecurity and/ or exacerbating the risk of collapse of the marine ecosystem 

• Producers must be fully transparent, consistent and granular on their aquafeed sourcing, including volumes, locations, species