The Fish That Feed Your Fish: What Farmed Salmon Really Eat

0:00 The world's biggest salmon farming company was founded by a Norwegian family, and one member of that family now asks a question the industry probably hates: How can it be sustainable to take fish from poor countries, grind it up, ship it halfway across the world, and feed it to salmon for wealthy shoppers? Today, we answer him on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. This is the podcast where you find out everything about the ocean, ocean news, ocean science, ocean conservation. We talk about the entire gambit, and we are here to inform you so that you have a little bit more of an understanding of what's happening in the ocean, so you can make better decisions for the ocean. So let's get into this week's episodes, which were all about fish feed and fish meal.

0:42 We talked a lot about it in yesterday's episode. I did an interview with the Outlaw Ocean Project, and we talked to Maya, who is all about telling, this five-year story that they've been working on, all about the stuff that you don't hear about aquaculture and fish feed, and stuff that needs to be improved, and all the crimes that happened. So if you wanna listen to that after this episode, go ahead and do that. And hit that follow button, 'cause if you are interested in any of this and you eat farmed salmon, you wanna know little bit more about it, this is, the week you wanna listen to, cause this is gonna be some interesting things that you may not know about. So in these next four episodes that you're gonna see, we're gonna be talking about food that feeds farmed fish. We're gonna be following them from your plate back to the boat. That's what we're gonna be talking about.

1:22 And today we're gonna talk about what farmed fish actually eat. Because a lot of these farmed fish are predators, and they eat other fish. And so it's good to know what they eat. so we're gonna talk a lot about that because, there's a lot of stuff that goes on with fish, like aquaculture in general, so farmed fish. So things like salmon out on the west coast of Canada and BC, there's a lot of controversy surrounding that. there are a lot of controversy surrounding, things that have happened in the past, how things have gotten better like now, today, and hopefully in the future, but still not perfect, and how we are relying more and more on farmed fish to eat like our seafood than we did in the past. So, And the idea around the whole thing is that We're taking pressure off wild fisheries. That's the whole idea behind it, and allowing people to fish.

2:06 And people are making money off of this, which is not a problem for me. The idea is, are they doing it in a sustainable fashion? And what does that mean when it's sustainable? Are they not harming the ocean? Are they making sure they're not fishing over fish populations? Are they getting away with crimes like, pretty much against humanity? There's a lot of stuff that we're gonna be talking about today. So if you choose farmed fish and to do the right thing for the ocean, that choice, made sense with the information that you had. And a lot of times this information that we're gonna talk about this week and that we talked about yesterday wasn't really around. And now you're gonna hear the farmed fish eat wild fish and it feels pointless, and it isn't, By the end of this episode, you're gonna know which farmed seafood helps and which adds a lot more pressure.

2:46 So, that's essentially what we're gonna do one of the things that's interesting, I told this story yesterday, but I'm gonna tell it again today. I went to the University of Guelph in the late '90s and early 2000s. I graduated in 2001, with a BSC. I took an aquaculture class, and my professor at the time said, like, fish farms were one day going to supply half the world's seafood. And at that time, I was like, "There's no way. That's a really big number." it does. He was right. And, nobody in the room really talked about what those fish would eat , they talked a little bit about, like, how they eat and stuff, but we didn't really know the cost of fish meal, that was gonna happen. So the big thing here is it's like, where it comes from and who's paying the price, now, the stories you're gonna hear and the information you're gonna hear, a lot of it is from the Outlaw Ocean Project.

3:28 I scoured, I scoured the, website. I kinda took a couple stories to help really bring home what's happening. there's a company called Mowi, which is the largest farmed salmon company in the world, and it was founded by a Norwegian family named Mowinckel. And Frederick Mowinckel, from that same family, has become one of the industry's sharpest critics. In a January 2026 interview with The Outlaw Ocean Project, he asked a simple question. He said, "How can it be sustainable to take fish from the poor, grind it up, ship it halfway around the world, and feed it to salmon eaten by people who are pretty much better off than the people who would eat that fish?" and when someone whose family name is on the company asking that question, it deserves an answer, And so, the thing is, is like where do you find this type of answer?

4:12 And The answer's really in the numbers, More than half of the seafood eaten worldwide now comes from fish farms. and about two-thirds of farmed seafood is the kind that gets fed, they're predators, so they need to be fed to grow. And much of that feed includes fish meal and fish oil. Now more than a fifth of all wild-caught fish ends up as feed. That's incredible, We think that fishing is just really, it's because of us. It's because we eat this. And yes, we do, but in an indirect way 'cause we're eating the farmed seafood that is coming out of this area. Now, so like what does a fish meal look like? It's got all these little pellets, right? And so fish meal's really, it's a dark yellow powder made by cooking and grinding small fish, so anchoveta, sardinella, herring.

4:53 fish oil is the liquid version, and roughly 90% of fish turned into fish meal are fish people could eat. These are fish that people eat. Yet we're told that people don't eat this type of fish, but that's not true. Now investigators from the Ocean Outlaw, Project found at least half of the species landed by fish meal boats are classed as overexploited or even worse. Now these small fish feed everything else, so you got tuna, seabirds, whales, sharks, and people. And, that's really where it comes, like to bring it home, We eat these fish as well. And whether it's indirectly or directly, that's part of a lot of people's diets and for some of us who live in North America, but here in Canada too, sometimes it feels like it's a little too far away.

5:34 Like, that's not something that's affected by us. But the way global fisheries works, we can look to Atlantic Canada. In 2022, the allowable catch of Atlantic herring in the Bay of Fundy and on the Scotia Shelf was cut by a third because, researchers figured out that, hey, the stock was in trouble. That same year, Canada closed its Atlantic mackerel fishery entirely after federal scientists put the species in the critical zone. And Oceana Canada said that the decade before, quotas had been set at 10 times what scientists have advised. And we've seen that happen a lot of times before, especially the old school tuna industry. Now these are the same kinds of small oily fish that fish meal boats chase around the world. Everything that eats them pay the price.

6:15 So small fish are easy to overlook until they're pretty much they're gone, Fish meal demands adds one more mouth, like competing for them. And it's already difficult for these fish and whales and sea turtles and sea birds, everything, to eat these animals, to find these animals. El Niños and climate change are changing where these animals are. The El Niño now that we're seeing right now, we're in a super El Niño. We're seeing it change the productivity of the major upwelling that happens in South America that drives a lot of fishing around the world. And so we are seeing, that drop as every year, and the fact that El Niños are happening more and more often, we're seeing less of a recovery between those events, and that could be a big problem in the future.

6:57 Now, but the question really is, like, how many wild fish does one farmed salmon eat, like, how many are we really causing here? And scientists argue about this in the scientific journal. Some research say that the industry undercounts wild fish use. Others say the critics rely on old data from when feeds were more fish heavy. And either way, fish farming depends on wild fish, That's the part, like, nobody disputes. We know that this is a thing But just changing the feed is hard, And you wanna know why? Well, let's talk about why. In 2021, a French company called Winsect opened what it billed as the largest insect farm in the world. Now, inside a warehouse in the eastern France, trays of mealworm larvae were stacked about 60 feet high, and the plan was to grind them into protein powder and replace fish meal in animal feed.

7:46 Now, investors put in more than a half a billion dollars, but by 2022, the company had lost more than $105 million. And in 2023, it pivoted to high-end pet food Now, fish farms use about three and a half million tons of fish meal every year. Even optimistic forecasts for insect protein reach a few hundred thousand tons. So alternatives, although they're in the mix and they're coming, and some will eventually help, feed can change, and Norway proves it. So we're seeing that it happens, but the fastest fix is already sitting at the seafood counter. In 1990, about 90% of what went into Norwegian salmon feed came from the sea. Now, something to know is salmon farming ran on fish meal and fish oil.

8:28 Over 30 years, researchers swapped most of it out for plant ingredients. By 2020, marine ingredients were down to about 22% of the feed. Now, obviously that's real progress, but there is a catch. Over the same period, the industry grew enormously, and more than 90% of Norway's feed ingredients are now imported from all over the world. So investor analysts reported that five of the biggest salmon companies actually increased their total use of whole wild fish between 2020 and 2024. Now, less fish every pellet, but there's a lot more pellets. Is progress per fish, but the thing is there's more pressure overall, So keep that in your back pocket for tomorrow 'cause we're gonna discuss that in tomorrow's episode.

9:10 Don't forget to follow this podcast because you don't wanna miss tomorrow's episode. But farmed seafood has a second family. It has mussels, oysters, and clams. They eat plankton straight out of the water and nobody feeds them anything, so they're a really good species to use as a farming species. And researchers at Cambridge estimate bivalve farming could cover the protein need of nearly a billion people. Now, since 2000, the share of farming that needs no feed, which is basically the bivalve farming, has dropped from about 40% to about 27%. So every bivalve meal pushes that back up. So the fact is that if we eat more farmed bivalves, so mussels, clams, and so forth, that will actually help us in decreasing the amount of wild fish that is used in fish farming, because if there's more fish farming of these bivalves, then we start to make a dent in what's happening in farmed fish.

10:07 And more people, because there's more demand, will go towards farming bivalves like mussels, clams, and oysters, and less people will use… Well, 'cause there's a less demand for farmed fish. So that's something to look forward to, That's something that we can do as an act is look for more farmed bivalves than it is farmed fish. Now, tomorrow we're going to find out where those forage fish come from, so the sardines, the anchovies, and so forth, and whose dinner they used to be. We're gonna talk all about that in tomorrow's episode. And this week, what I want you to do as, as like sort of a call to action, 'cause I like to have a call to action after every episode, is swap that one farmed salmon or shrimp meal for farmed mussels, oysters, or clams. That's the big thing here. And if you picture sort of like mussels, like a mussel like hanging in cold water, filtering the water clean while it grows, nobody has to be fed fish meal.

10:56 Nobody went hungry for it. It doesn't affect anybody. You get a great meal full of protein. That's what I want you to think about. That's the big win, And some of the best seafood on earth asks nothing from the ocean except to be left alone. That's the big thing, And I think that's the big important message that we're driving home today, is that we need to understand that there is a need… Although we have a need for farmed seafood, it doesn't have to be farmed fish. And the less farmed fish we have, because there's been a big demand for it, that means the less forage fish we use, and better fishing in overall commercial fishing And the people who live around those fish, the forage fish, can eat it themselves, and can be, in, better off for that.

11:41 So that's it for today's episode. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. hit me up. If you're listening to this on Spotify, hit me up in the comments section. I like to respond as soon as I can. And if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app, go to the show notes. All my socials are in there. You can DM me. I would love to have that one-on-one conversation, 'cause this is the beginning of a conversation of what I'd like to do here, and talk about fisheries, and talk about the ocean, and talk about science. And I would love for you to continue that conversation with me, on my socials. so check that out in the show notes, and thank you so much. Don't forget to follow the podcast, subscribe wherever you need to. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.