GOOD PRACTICE: Future of Fish Feed (F3)
Category:NewsFuture of Fish Feed (F3) is a collaborative effort between NGOs, researchers, and private partnerships to accelerate the commercialization of innovative, substitute aquaculture feed ingredients to replace wild-caught fish. The F3 Challenge is a series of contests designed to help accelerate “fish-free” ingredients for aquaculture feed that produce healthy seafood for consumers without utilizing wild ocean fish like anchovies, sardines and menhaden.
F3 CHALLENGES:
1. Fish-Free Feed Challenge – launched in 2015
The challenge was for an aquafeed company to either produce and sell the most seafood-free aquaculture feed using innovative formulations of proteins and lipids by the challenge end date, September 15, 2017, or be the first to reach 100,000 metric tons (mT) of seafood-free feed sales.
TOTAL FORAGE FISH SAVINGS FROM THE F3 FISH-FREE FEEDS CHALLENGE: 350 MILLION
2. Fish Oil Challenge – launched in 2017
The challenge aimed to find fish oil replacements that contain essential fatty acids in ratios that mimic the average fatty acid profile found in forage fish. The prize was for the team that sold the greatest amount of DHA + EPA + ARA as calculated from sales of qualified F3 Oil by the end of the Challenge (2019).
TOTAL FORAGE FISH SAVINGS FROM THE F3 FISH OIL CHALLENGE: 2 BILLION
3. Carnivore Edition – launched in 2019
The challenge was to create a Fish-Free Feed for one of three categories: Salmonid, Shrimp, or Other Carnivorous Species. The goal of this challenge was to reduce aquaculture’s demand for forage fish by advancing substitute feeds for the industry’s biggest consumers of forage fish.
The prize was awarded to the team that sold the greatest amount of F3 Feeds in their category (Salmonid F3 Feeds; Shrimp F3 Feeds; Other Carnivorous Species F3 Feeds) at the conclusion of the Challenge sales period (September 15, 2022).
TOTAL FORAGE FISH SAVINGS FROM THE F3 CARNIVORE EDITION CHALLENGE: OVER 95 MILLION
The next F3 Challenge focused on palatants will be announced in early 2023.
Find out more at f3challenge.org.
You can also check out the F3 webinar series in the playlist below: