FEATU RE A RTI C LE

FISH IN - FISH OUTRATIOS EXPLAINEDBY A N DR EW JAC KSO N

One of the long continued debates in aquaculture is the use of fishmeal and fish oilin feeds and the amount of wild fish it takes to produce farmed fish. This debate has
particularly raged around the use of fish oil and fishmeal in salmon diets and a lot ofdifferent figures have been quoted for the number of tonnes of wild fish it takes toproduce a tonne of farmed salmon (FIFO ratio). These quoted figures range from 3:1
to 10:1; the most recent figure published comes from Tacon & Metian (2008) whogave the figure for Salmon in 2006 as 4.9:1, meaning it takes 4.9 tonnes of wild fish
to produce 1 tonne of salmon.
It can be easily demonstrated how they came up with this figure. If we take 1 tonne(1000 kg) of wild fish, they assume that this would yield 225 kg of fishmeal and 50 kgof fish oil.

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In 2006 they say that salmon diets on average contained
30% fishmeal and 20% fish oil. This means that one
could produce 250kg of salmon feed by using up
all of the 50 kg of fish oil. Salmon then have a feed
conversion ratio (FCR) of 1.25 which therefore givesa harvest volume of 200 kg of salmon. So our starting
1000kg of wild fish have been turned into 200 kg ofsalmon which is a Fish in - Fish out (FIFO) ratio of
5:1 (1000:200), which compares well with Tacon &Metian’s global figure of 4.9:1.

However, it can be seen from the table that while all thefish oil was used to produce the salmon feed, there was
150kg of fishmeal left over; this cannot be used as there
is no more oil. In their calculation this is just thrownaway and wasted.
Let us now turn our attention to the production ofshrimp, the other major global user of fishmeal; in thiscase Tacon & Metian give a FIFO ratio of 1.4:1. Again
we can do a worked example using the same starting
point of 1 tonne of wild fish.
SHRIMPSALMON
Wt of pelagic fish at start kg

1000

Wt of pelagic fish at start kg

1000

Wt of Fishmeal kg
Wt of fish oil kg22550

Wt of Fishmeal kg
Wt of fish oil kg

225
50

How much shrimp do I produce?

How much salmon do I produce?
Fish oil in the diet %Fishmeal in the diet %2030

Fish oil in the diet %Fishmeal in the diet %Requirement of oil kg
Requirement of fishmeal kg

50
75

Requirement of oil kg
Requirement of fishmeal kg

22.5
225

Amount of feed that can be produced kg

250

Amount of feed that can be produced kg

1125

FCR

1.25

FCR

1.7

Salmon Produced kg
FIFO

200
5.0Shrimp Produced kg
FIFO

662
1.5

Fishmeal left over kg150Fish Oil left over kg

28220

Assumptions from Tacon & Metian highlighted green

In this case the diets for shrimp require much more fishmeal than fish oil, so all the 225kg of fishmeal is used toproduce 1125 kg of shrimp feed, which with an FCR of 1.7, produces 662kg of harvestable shrimp and a FIFO ratioof 1.5:1 (1000/662). This is virtually the same as the Tacon & Metian figure of 1.4:1. On this occasion it can be seenthat there is 28kg of surplus fish oil which it is assumed is discarded.
It can therefore be clearly seen that with salmon production there is surplus fishmeal and with shrimp production
there is surplus fish oil, so that a combination of the two should be more efficient.
SALMON

PLUS

Wt of pelagic fish at start kg

1000

Wt of Fishmeal kg
Wt of fish oil kg

225
50

How much salmon do I produce?

SHRIMP

How much shrimp do I produce?

Fish oil in the diet %Fishmeal in the diet %2030

Fish oil in the diet %Fishmeal in the diet %220

Requirement of oil kg
Requirement of fishmeal kg

3553

Requirement of oil kgRequirement of fishmeal kg

15150

Amount of feed that can be produced kg

175

Amount of feed that can be produced kg

750

FCR

1.25

FCR

1.7Salmon Produced kg

140Shrimp Produced kg

441

Total Weight Produced
FIFO

581
1.7

Fishmeal left over kg
Fish Oil left over kg

230
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FEATU RE A RTI C LE

In this case if we use most of the oil (35kg from the available 50kg) for the salmon, we can produce 175 kg of salmon
feed and this produces 140 kg of salmon. This would also use 53 kg of the available 225kg of fishmeal. If we use theremaining 15 kg of fish oil for shrimp feed and combine this with 150 kg of fishmeal we could produce 750kg ofshrimp feed, which would yield 441kg of shrimp. The combined FIFO ratio is now 1.7:1 (1000:581) and there is still
23kg of fishmeal left over.
So let us go one more step and combine our salmon and shrimp production with some carp production, which does
not use any fish oil.
SALMON

PLUS

Wt of pelagic fish at start kg

1000

Wt of Fishmeal kg
Wt of fish oil kg

22550

How much salmon do I produce?

SHRIMP

PLUS

How much shrimp do I produce?

CARP

How much carp do I produce?

Fish oil in the diet %Fishmeal in the diet %2030

Fish oil in the diet %Fishmeal in the diet %220

Fish oil in the diet %Fishmeal in the diet %05Requirement of oil kg
Requirement of fishmeal kg

3553

Requirement of oil kg
Requirement of fishmeal kg

15150

Requirement of oil kg
Requirement of fishmeal kg

023

Amount of feed that can beproduced kg

175

Amount of feed that can beproduced kg750Amount of feed that can beproduced kg

450

FCR

1.25

FCR

1.7

FCR

1.8

Salmon Produced kg

140Shrimp Produced kg

441

Carp Produced kg

250

Total Weight Produced
FIFO

831
1.2

Fishmeal left over kg
Fish Oil left over kg

00

Now we can see that if we use the extra 23kg of fishmeal, we could produce 250kg of carp and reduce further theFIFO ratio to 1.2:1 and now everything is being used and there is no wastage.
From these worked examples it can be seen that calculating the FIFO ratio based on just one type of farming does notgive the correct picture and that the reality is that one should only use in the FIFO ratio calculation what is actuallyused and not “discard” anything. In the real world all the fishmeal and fish oil is used and therefore we need a methodof calculation that correctly attributes the wild fish caught to their final use.
Let us therefore use the following formula :FIFO Ratio=Level of fishmeal in the diet + Level of fish oil in the dietX FCRYield of fishmeal from wild fish + Yield of fish oil from wild fish

So for Salmon we calculate:
Salmon FIFO Ratio =30 + 20 X 1.25
22.5 + 5.0

To check whether this is giving
us the correct answer we canuse it to recalculate how muchwild fish was used in ourworked example to produce
our 140, 441 and 250 kg ofsalmon, shrimp and carp:

=

2.27

SalmonShrimpCarp

FIFO calculated using formula

2.27

1.36

0.33

Total of farmed production kg

140441250

Amount of wild fish used kg (Production x FIFO)

31860082

Total amount of wild fish used kg

1000

We can therefore see that the total requirement of wild fish to produce these different amounts of salmon, shrimp andcarp was 1000kg, our agreed start number. We can therefore assume that this method of calculating the FIFO ratio
correctly attributes volumes of wild caught fish to their correct final use. Let us therefore turn from just one tonne ofµÕ>VÕÌÕÀiÊ ÕÀ«iÊUÊ6°ÊÎ{Ê­Î®Ê-i«ÌiLiÀÊÓää
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FEATU RE ARTI C LE

wild caught fish to the 20.2 million tonnes of raw material that was used for the production of fishmeal and fish oil in2006 according to the FAO (FAO SOFIA 2008).
Tacon & Metian in their recent paper gave the results of their global survey of aquaculture feeds and reported thefollowing :Data presented by Tacon & Metian with Wild Fish Used calculated using their method
Fish
Production

Feed
Used

WorldFCR

FM UsedFO UsedFIFO Ratio

Wild Fish
Used

SalmonTrout
EelMarine Fish
Shrimp
FW Crustaceans
Tilapia
CatfishMilkfish
Carp
Misc FW Carn. Fish

1465
632
266
1536
3164
1066
2326
1809
585
10225
777

1831
790
379
2072
4948
1030
3203
1927
468
8466
249

1.25
1.25
1.42
1.35
1.56
0.97
1.38
1.07
0.800.83
0.32

549
237
209
663
990
155
192
193
14
423
100

361
109
19
166
99
15
16
33
5
0
12

4.9
3.4
3.5
2.2
1.4
0.6
0.4
0.5
0.2
0.2
0.6

7220
2180
927
3316
4399
687
854
856
94
1881
442

Total Fed farmed fish& shellfish

23851

25363

3724

835

SpeciesVolumes ,000 t

22856

We can see all the groupings of aquaculture
species that make use of fishmeal and fish oil
and their calculated FIFO Ratios including
those for salmon and shrimp as alreadydiscussed. However, in the final column one
can see the tonnage of wild fish required in
the production of each group and this agrees
with their reported FIFO ratios. We can see
that, as in our small scale example, the method
produces very high levels of wild fish usage tothe point where if we add them up we reach a
total global figure of nearly 23 million tonnesof wild fish. This is in excess of the FAO figure
for total world catch of wild fish rendered forfishmeal and oil production (20.2 million) andthe calculation does not consider fishmeal andfish oil used in pig and poultry production.

Andrew Jackson is currently the Technical Director of IFFO,
a global trade organisation representing the fishmeal andfish oil industry and associated businesses with around 200members in 40 countries. In this role he assists memberswith their technical issues as well as representing the industry at international conferences. He is also working witha full value-chain advisory committee, which is developinga Code of Responsible Practice for the industry. This codeshould allow the industry to demonstrate both responsible
sourcing of raw materials as well as good manufacturing
practice and product safety. Before joining IFFO in 2006,
Andrew worked for over 20 years in the salmon farming,working most of the time for Marine Harvest. He was also
Chairman of the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation.

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Pelagic CatchUnloading Anchovies

Fishmeal

If however we use the same data as presented by Tacon & Metian but use the alternative method of calculating theFIFO ratio, as outlined earlier, we obtain the following:

Alternative Method for Calculating FIFO RatiosSpecies

FM in Diet %FO in Diet %Yield of FM
from wild
fish %

Yield of FO
from wild
fish %

FIFO
Ratio

Wild Fish used,000 t

Salmon30

2022.552.33329

Trout

30

1522.552.01293

Eel

55

522.5

53.1827

Marine Fish

32

8

22.5

52.03014

Shrimp

20

2

22.5

51.33958

FW Crustaceans

15

1.5

22.5

50.6618

Tilapia

60.5

22.5

50.3757

Catfish

101.7

22.5

50.5820

Milkfish

31

22.5

50.1

68Carp5022.550.21539

Misc FW Carn. Fish

40

522.5

50.5407

Total of Fed farmed fish & shellfish

16631

Now with this new method we have a different set of FIFO ratios, with salmon still the highest at 2.3:1, but now thetotal amount of wild fish used in aquaculture production is 16.6 million. The remainder is used in pig and poultry
production.
So if we follow the same system to try and get an idea of the global picture using FAO STAT data for pig and poultry
production we can estimate the following:

Table showing the calculated FIFO for Aquaculture, Pigs and Poultry
FM in Diet

F0 in Diet%

Yield of FM%Yield of FO%

FCR%

FIFO
FIPOAquaculture
Pigs

0.25

022.5

5.0

3.9

Poultry

0.3

0

22.5

5.02Total

WorldProduction,000 t

Use ofWild fish,000 t

0.7

23851

16696

0.04

141222

5007

0.02

76245

1664

0.10

24131823366

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Pigs and poultry make very little use of fish oil and fishmeal is used mostly in the early stages but has been largely
removed from most adult grower diets. So the inclusion figure in the above table is very low over the whole growing
cycle.
This gives us a total raw material use for fishmeal and fish oil production of 23.3 million tonnes for these three major
categories. We therefore feel that this method of calculating the Fish in - Fish out ratios for aquaculture gives a truer
representation of situation than previously used methods. But, as already mentioned, the FAO estimated 20.2 million
tonnes of wild fish being rendered down for fishmeal and fish oil in 2006.
One reason for this is that the assumed yield figure of fishmeal from whole fish used by Tacon and Metian was 22.5%.
Over the last decade improved processing equipment has ensured a greater protein recovery from the whole fish andthe latest data IFFO has on this is that yield figures for the industry range from 23.5-24.5%. So if instead of 22.5%,
we use a fishmeal yield figure of 24% we get the following:

Summary of FIFO Ratios as calculated by IFFO
Species
SalmonTrout
EelMarine Fish
Shrimp
FW Crustaceans
Tilapia
CatfishMilkfish
Carp
Misc FW Carn. Fish

FM in Diet %FO in Diet %20155821.5
0.5
1.7105

Yield of FM
from wild fish %
24
24
24
24
24
24
24
24
24
24
24

Yield of FO
from wild fish %55555555555

FIFO
Ratio
2.2
1.9
2.9
1.9
1.2
0.5
0.3
0.4
0.1
0.1
0.5

Wild Fish used,000t
3157
1226
784
2858
3754
586
718
777
65
1460
386

30
30
55
32
20
15
610
3
540

0.66

15770

Pigs

Total of Fed farmed fish & shellfish
0.25

024

50.03

4748

Poultry

0.3

024

50.02

1577

0.09

22096

Total

This reduces the total weight of wild fish used to 22.1 million tonnes (down from 23.3 million) which is closer to theFAO figure of 20.2. The annual global production of fishmeal in 2006 according to IFFO statistics was 5.2 million
tonnes which at a 24% yield would require 21.7 million tonnes of raw material. The figures are therefore all consistent.
One final consideration is that more and more of the world’s fishmeal and oil is derived from fisheries by-products suchas heads, guts and filleting waste. The differentiation between by-product fishmeal and whole fish fishmeal has notbeen well captured in world statistics; this goes for both IFFO and FAO data. In a recent study conducted by IFFO wecalculated that around 22% of fishmeal was derived from by-products rather than whole fish.
If we use this assumption the whole wild fish in - whole farmed fish out ratio obviously falls:
Table showing the calculated FIFO for Aquaculture, Pigs and Poultry excluding fisheries by-products

Aquaculture
Pigs
Poultry
TotalSalmon

World Production,000 t23851
14122276245
241318Use of Fish,000 t
15770
4748
1577
22096

% Coming fromfishery byproducts
22222222

Use of whole
wild fish 000 t
12301
3703
1230
17235

FIFO
/FIPO
0.52
0.03
0.02
0.07

1465

3157

222462

1.68

In this case the Fish in - Fish out ratio for all aquaculture
falls to 0.52. That is for every tonne of whole wild fishcaught, aquaculture produces 1.92 tonnes of harvestableproduct. Salmon is still the highest user with a FIFO ratioof 1.68, meaning that for every tonne of whole wild fishused there is 0.595 tonnes of salmon produced. If one

looks at the whole of the fishmeal and fish oil industry,for every 1 tonne of whole wild fish converted into
fishmeal and fish oil, the food producing industries which
use these products produce around 14 tonnes of farmed
produce.
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