CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS OF ALTERNATIVE AQUAFEED INGREDIENTS FOR FARMED SALMON: A CROSS-COUNTRY SURVEY IN FRANCE, THE UNITED KINGDOM AND GERMANY

Introduction

Global demand for aquatic foods is set to grow substantially, with the 2025 EAT–Lancet Commission projecting a 46% increase in aquatic food production to meet planetary health targets by 2050 (Rockström et al., 2025). Meeting this demand sustainably requires further diversification of aquafeed formulation. Salmon farming has traditionally relied on fishmeal and fish oil for essential EPA and DHA, critical for fish health and human nutrition (Santigosa et al., 2023). Over two decades, the European industry reduced marine ingredient dependency by shifting to plant inputs, but this increased land use, carbon emissions, and eutrophication (Kok et al., 2026), while EPA and DHA levels in farmed salmon declined (Hannisdal et al., 2025). The sector must now optimise for both nutrition and environment, requiring a broader basket of ingredients. Promising alternatives exist for both omega-3 supply and protein (Glencross et al., 2023), yet adoption remains limited by cost, scale, retailer restrictions, and perceived consumer rejection. In multi-stakeholder workshops facilitated by Earthworm Foundation involving retailers, processors, farmers, and feed producers, consumer perception consistently emerged as a major barrier to feed diversification yet empirical evidence on actual consumer attitudes remains scarce. This study addresses that gap in the three major European salmon consumer markets responsible for these value-chain restrictions: France, the UK and Germany.

Materials and Methods

Three nationally representative online panel surveys were conducted: in France (July 2024, n = 1,000), the United Kingdom (May 2025, n = 1,000) and and Germany (March 2026, n = 1,050); analyses were run on the 2,569 respondents who eat salmon. Quota sampling was applied based on gender, age, socio-professional category, region of residence, and urban area size, in line with national statistics (margin of error: 3%, confidence level: 95%). Data collection was managed by BVA Xsight (France, UK) and Moweb (Germany). The questionnaire comprised five sections: sociodemographic profile, seafood consumption habits, aquaculture and aquafeed knowledge, ingredients acceptance (three for fish oil: microalgae oil, GM plant oil, farmed salmon oil; three for fishmeal: soybean meal, insect meal, poultry meal), and psychographic profile. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, logistic regression per ingredient, and mixed-effects logistic regression across ingredients with a respondent random intercept, applying Benjamini-Hochberg correction for multiple testing (RStudio, p < 0.05).

Results

Willingness to buy salmon fed with alternative ingredients was high overall, with notable cross-country differences (Figure 1). Four of the six ingredients were accepted by majorities in all three countries: microalgae oil (77–87%), soybean meal (71–84%), farmed salmon oil (70–79%) and insect meal (65–73%). Resistance was confined to GM plant oil and poultry meal. For GM plant oil, France (39%) and Germany (37%) were statistically indistinguishable while the UK reached 61%; for poultry meal, Germany (63%) and the UK (62%) were indistinguishable while France fell to 40%. Willingness to buy was driven principally by attitudes rather than demographics, with a positive view of farmed fish increasing it and opposition to GMOs reducing it; most effects differed in magnitude between countries. Opposition to GMOs reduced willingness to buy for all six ingredients.

Figure 1. Willingness to buy farmed salmon fed with alternative ingredients in France, the UK and Germany.

Discussion

These results provide the first cross-country empirical evidence that consumer willingness to buy salmon fed with alternative aquafeed ingredients is higher than commonly assumed by industry actors. While multi-stakeholder consultations consistently identify consumer rejection as a primary barrier to feed diversification, majorities in all three countries would purchase salmon fed with most tested alternatives. Farmed salmon oil, restricted by several retailers on the assumption that consumers reject it, was among the most accepted ingredients tested and the first choice among fish oil alternatives for German and UK consumers. Where resistance does occur it is both ingredient-specific and country-specific, so a single European consumer position cannot be invoked to justify pan-European sourcing specifications. Younger consumers, who are also among the most frequent salmon buyers, show significantly higher acceptance of the two contested ingredients, suggesting that resistance may diminish as this segment matures. Acceptance was driven by attitudes rather than by knowledge, which had no independent effect once attitudes were accounted for. These findings challenge the precautionary stance constraining feed reformulation in European salmon supply chains and offer an evidence base for more sustainable aquafeed strategies.

Acknowledgment

This work was conducted within the Aquafeed Initiative, coordinated by the Earthworm Foundation and co-funded by BioMar, Skretting, Cargill, Mowi, Cermaq, Leroy and the Norwegian Seafood Council.

References

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