Introduction
European aquaculture is especially vulnerable to supply chain shocks related to feed provision. Over 90% of Norwegian salmon feed ingredients by volume are imported. As a result much of the global environmental impact from European aquaculture is also outside of Europe, including pressure on forage fisheries for marine ingredients, or reliance on crops that have been associated with deforestation such as soybean, as well known examples. The pressure has been to develop local and novel sources of ingredients that are low impact, often within "circular economies" using locally sourced by-products. However, despite initial promise, many of the novel ingredient industries have faced challenges around legislation, scalability, consistency, logistics, high costs and with sustainability credentials that have not met expectations. The Norwegian industry has specific targets around reducing reliance on imported feed ingredients whilst reducing environmental impacts so that all ingredients are form "sustainable sources" by 2030. In this paper we investigate the Life Cycle Assessment of the production of mussel protein ingredients for Norwegian salmon feed, made from locally produced mussels. Mussels are produced in seawater with no feed inputs and minimal intervention and therefore have a low environmental impact compared to some traditional ingredients. However, Norwegian conditions can sometimes lead to long culture periods and smaller mussels than in warmer locations. Nutritionally, deshelled ingredients have excellent properties, with high digestibility, protein levels of around 65%DM, suitable amino acid profile and low fat, making them as excellent candidate for salmon feed. Two main ingredients were tested; a mussel slurry that was not treated and a hydrolysed mussel silage.
Methods
Life Cycle Assessment data was collected from pilot facilities for the production of protein ingredients that were subsequently tested in nutrition trials. Data were collected on yields of mussels from pilot commercial production facilities in Hardangerfjord, fuel use and other servicing along with data on processing mussels into feed ingredients, including energy use, chemical inputs and yields of products. Performance of the mussel ingredients was tested in nutrition trials, from which the overall environmental impacts of salmon produced using the different ingredients could be assessed.
Results and discussion
Results are still being analysed and will be and will be provided, detailing LCA impacts of mussel production, ingredient production per tonne of ingredient and their performance in salmon diets from the nutrition trials. This section will be updated accordingly
Acknowledgements
This project was funded by the Norwegian Seafood Research Fund (FHF project number: 901895)
References