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Home News Center Corporate Introducing the Fourth R: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – and Recapture
Mar 31, 2021

Introducing the Fourth R: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – and Recapture

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The concept of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle is a practical guide for the responsible use of planetary resources. When it comes to marine resource management, an additional ‘R’ can also make an important contribution – that of ‘Recaptured’ fishmeal (FM) and fish oil (FO).

Mowi Nutrition has recently been able to implement this fourth R by producing FM and FO from our farmed salmon by-products and trimmings, which is subsequently made available to other applications through global markets. This efficiency helps reduce our environmental footprint and helps align us with #12 of the Sustainable Development Goals: to “Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns”. With 25–30% of global food production currently being wasted, this is a target that all food sectors must strive to meet, united in a shared goal of “doing more and better with less”.

A common metric for measuring the responsible use of FM/FO in aquaculture is the Fish In-Fish Out (FIFO) ratio, which compares wild fish inputs with farmed fish outputs. Although the concept is simple at heart, it is more complex in practice, but it is a useful way to begin to account for FM/FO resource efficiency.

Since the FIFO concept first arose in the 2000s, technological improvements have been realised across the entire FM/FO value-chain. The recapture of FM/FO from farmed fish takes this process a step further; we call this the RecaptureFIFO (rFIFO), a metric that more accurately reflects the ‘nett’ use of FM/FO. In 2020, Mowi recaptured ~14,000 tonnes of FO from our Norwegian operations, which had initially used ~34,000 tonnes; together with recaptured FM this results in an rFIFO of 0.54. By implementing the fourth R across the group, our aim is to keep giving back into the global fund of marine ingredients – and to continue “doing more and better with less”.

 

You can read more about rFIFO in our 2020 Annual Report.