Fish Oil and Fish Meal Production from Urban Fisheries Biomass in Japan

Finding an alternative feed source for the replacement of fish oil (FO) and fish meal (FM) produced from whole fish has been an important issue for realizing sustainable aquaculture. In this study, fishery by-products generated in the distribution phase, known as urban fisheries biomass (UFB), were focused on. The quality parameter and nutrient components of FO and FM from UFB were analyzed. Although crude FO produced from UFB showed relatively poor quality properties, the refinement process made an improvement of the quality to make it comparable to commercially available FO. There is no big variation in several samples in fatty acid profiles of FO and amino acid profiles of FM, and they seem to be able to replace FO and FM from whole fish in the diet for cultured fish. The utilization of UFB should be promoted in economic and ecologic aspects; however, in use of the FM, there remains a risk of intra-species recycling that might lead to transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. Furthermore, we must take into consideration the possibility of contamination of fishery products from at-risk species and illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fisheries due to the lack of regulations in Japan.