Overview
Fish Meal is an essential ingredient in aquaculture feed, especially for the cultured Vannamei Shrimp widely grown worldwide. With excellent performance during its last four years, Gold Fin International LLC has decided to set up a plant for manufacturing value-added Refined Sardine Fish Oil and Fish Oil Ethyl Ester using crude fish oil produced by it.
Fish meal, coarsely ground powder made from the cooked flesh of fish. Though formerly crucial as a fertilizer, fish meal is now primarily used in animal feed — especially for poultry, swine, mink, farm-raised fish, and pets.
Fishmeal is a generic term for a nutrient-rich feed ingredient used primarily in diets for domestic animals, sometimes used as a high-quality organic fertilizer. Fishmeal can be made from almost any type of seafood but is generally manufactured from wild-caught, small marine fish containing a high percentage of bones and oil and is usually deemed unsuitable for direct human consumption. These fishes are considered industrial since most of them are caught for the sole purpose of fishmeal and fish oil production. A small percentage of fishmeal is rendered from the by-catch of other fisheries and by-products or trimmings created during processing (e.g., fish filleting and cannery operations) of various seafood products destined for direct human consumption.
The fishmeal and fish oil industries are one of the few major animal industries existing today that still rely significantly on a hunting-and-gathering technique. Most fish rendered into meal and oil are captured at sea. Millions of tonnes of fishmeal are produced worldwide. Contrary to recent popular beliefs, most fishmeal and oil are made from sustainable, managed, and monitored fish stocks, reducing the possibility of over-fishing.
Approximately 4 to 5 tonnes of whole fish are required to produce 1 tonne of dry fishmeal. Peru has almost one-third of the total world fishmeal supply. Other principal fishmeal-producing countries are Chile, China, Thailand, the USA, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, and Japan. Significant groups of industrial fish rendered into fishmeal are anchovies, herrings, menhaden, sardines, shads, and smelts.
Fish can be processed at sea in factory ships or caught and stored until transported to a processing facility on the coast. Fish is a highly perishable raw material, and spoilage will occur if not processed on time. Preservation using ice or refrigerated seawater is joint.