Petter Martin Johannessen, IFFO’s Director General, sees this webinar as “a wonderful opportunity for the marine ingredients industry to show its enthusiasm in contributing to the future of food. The sector bears a huge responsibility and large opportunities lie ahead for growth in sustainable mariculture”.
The webinar was made of distinct sessions, from a panel discussion to a market and a technical forum. Across all these sessions, it has been underlined that the industry is constantly adapting to new circumstances, which explains its resilience.
IFFO’s webinar featured many presentations focusing on science, with Professor Ray Hilborn (University of Washington) explaining fishery management and pelagic stock status during the panel discussion, and Dr Christopher Free (University of California-Santa Barbara) presenting a recent paper published in Nature entitled The Future of Food from the Sea. “The science is clearly providing clear guidance to the industry about fishery management and fish stocks assessment” Johannessen said, adding that nutrition science is much-needed.
The need for more EPA/DHA was a much-discussed topic during Mads Martinsen (Skretting Norway) and Morten Holdorff Møjbæk (BioMar Group)’s presentations, referring to research findings underlining that fish that struggle with diseases need more EPA/DHA. Harvesting sustainably on lower trophic levels was suggested as one solution to access more marine raw material, but this needs to be developed and explored.
The webinar also touched on voluntary certification standards and the assurance that they provide to consumers and retailers. “The industry is very proud to have developed a voluntary certification standard for marine ingredients, which is run within an independent third party programme. This is clearly a market driven approach which wouldn’t exist without the industry’s inputs and commitment” says Johannessen. During the webinar, Francisco Aldon, CEO of MarinTrust, explained that certification programmes are now delving into blockchain technologies in order to track products back to their origin, especially byproducts, which represent a key area of growth for the years to come.
Find the in-depth summaries of day 1 and day 2 in the blog section of our website.