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Neither fishmeal nor plant-based feed is automatically the sustainable choice. Fishmeal can pressure wild forage-fish stocks and marine food webs, while crop-based ingredients can shift impacts to land conversion, irrigation, fertilizer, freshwater pollution and habitat loss. The better option depends on the origin and processing of every ingredient, the formulation’s digestibility and feed-conversion performance, and the environmental indicator being measured.
For a fair comparison, evaluate marine-resource depletion, land use, greenhouse-gas emissions, water, nutrient pollution, biodiversity, nutritional adequacy, processing and supply reliability together. A feed described as “plant-based” or “fish-free” is a formulation label, not a sustainability certification.
What fishmeal and plant-based aquaculture feed actually are
Fishmeal is a concentrated protein ingredient made by cooking, pressing, drying and grinding fish or fish-processing material. It may come from whole small pelagic fish, commonly called forage fish, or from trimmings left after fish are processed for human food. Fish oil is a related marine ingredient used mainly for energy and essential long-chain omega-3 fatty acids.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesPlant-based feed replaces some or all marine ingredients with proteins and oils from crops such as soy, wheat, peas, canola or other terrestrial plants. Formulators may also use plant meals, concentrates, isolates and processed oils rather than raw seeds. The nutritional and environmental result changes with the crop, farming system, location, processing method and inclusion rate.
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Aquaculture has expanded rapidly: global production increased by about 500% since the late 1980s, a figure reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization in 2020 and discussed in a 2023 Elementa analysis. As farmed seafood supplies more of the world’s fish, feed choices affect both the footprint of each farm and the pressure placed on wild ecosystems.
The short answer: compare the whole feed, not the headline ingredient
Fishmeal made from trimmings or from a well-managed fishery can have a different footprint from fishmeal made by harvesting additional wild forage fish. A rain-fed, low-deforestation crop processed near the farm can compare very differently with a crop linked to land conversion, irrigation and intensive fertilizer use. The same “fish-dominant” or “plant-dominant” label can therefore describe feeds with substantially different impacts.
Current evidence supports four practical conclusions:
- Fishmeal and fish oil are not biologically required for farmed fish to grow. NOAA Fisheries states that even carnivorous fish can be fed diets containing no fish-based ingredients, provided the diet meets the species’ nutrient requirements.
- Fishmeal’s clearest sustainability risk is dependence on wild fish and the resulting pressure on fishery resources and marine food webs.
- Plant ingredients reduce dependence on wild fish but can increase land occupation, water use, fertilizer demand, eutrophication and habitat impacts.
- Responsible sourcing and efficient feed performance matter across all ingredient families. No single environmental metric identifies a universal winner.
Comparison across the sustainability metrics that matter
The following scorecard describes the principal trade-offs. It is a framework for requesting evidence from a feed supplier, not a universal ranking.
| Metric | Fishmeal-based feed | Plant-based feed | What changes the result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marine-resource depletion | Potential pressure when whole wild forage fish are harvested; lower concern when material is sourced from verified trimmings or well-managed fisheries. | Usually reduces direct demand for wild fish. | Fishery stock status, catch limits, by-product share and traceability. |
| Land occupation and land-use change | Generally less cropland demand for the marine ingredient itself. | Requires agricultural land; impacts rise when production causes forest, grassland or wetland conversion. | Crop, yield, region, deforestation risk and allocation of co-products. |
| Greenhouse-gas emissions | Driven by fishing fuel, reduction-plant energy, transport and the treatment of fishery co-products. | Driven by fertilizer, soil emissions, land-use change, processing energy and transport. | Life-cycle boundaries and the origin of raw materials often dominate. |
| Freshwater use | May be comparatively low at the fishing stage, but processing can require water. | Can be high for irrigated crops and lower for rain-fed production; processing adds another demand. | Local water scarcity, irrigation method and processing technology. |
| Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution | Depends on processing losses and how efficiently fish digest the finished feed. | Fertilizer runoff can drive freshwater and marine eutrophication before the ingredient reaches the farm. | Farm nutrient management, ingredient digestibility and feed wastage. |
| Habitat and biodiversity | Overfishing can alter marine food webs; sustainable management can limit that risk. | Crop expansion can remove or fragment terrestrial habitat; intensive farming can affect soils and waterways. | Fishery governance, land-use history and conservation safeguards. |
| Nutrient adequacy and digestibility | Typically protein-dense and palatable, but amino-acid and lipid profiles still require formulation. | May contain antinutritional factors or less favorable amino-acid profiles; concentrates, heat treatment and supplements can correct them. | Species, life stage, digestibility data and the complete recipe. |
| Feed-conversion performance | Efficient performance can reduce the amount of feed and its associated footprint. | Lower digestibility or palatability can increase feed use unless the formulation is optimized. | Measured feed-conversion ratio, farm management and fish health. |
| Origin and processing energy | Fishing, drying and pressing can be energy intensive; allocation between meal, oil and other products matters. | Crushing, concentration, extrusion and transport add energy; co-product allocation changes accounting. | Declared life-cycle boundary, energy mix and allocation method. |
| Cost and supply reliability | Prices and availability track fishery catches, quotas, weather and competing markets. | Supply follows harvests, commodity markets, logistics and regional crop risks. | Contract terms, geographic diversity, storage and quality consistency. |
Why fishmeal can be unsustainable
Dependence on wild forage fish
Small schooling fish occupy a key position in marine food webs. When whole fish are diverted to reduction plants, the ecological question is not simply how many tonnes are caught; it is whether the fishery remains within scientifically advised limits and whether predators and coastal communities lose an important food source. Weak stock assessments, poor enforcement or excessive catches increase the risk.
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Fishmeal from processing trimmings presents a different starting point because the fish has already been landed for another market. It still carries the impacts of fishing and processing, but allocating those impacts between the food product, meal and oil can produce a lower additional burden than creating a fishery solely for feed. Suppliers should disclose the proportion of trimmings and the allocation rule used in their life-cycle assessment.
Fishing and reduction-plant energy
Fuel burned by vessels, refrigeration, transport and the heat used to dry meal all contribute to emissions. Those burdens vary with vessel type, trip length, fuel, plant efficiency and electricity source. A generic fishmeal emissions factor cannot represent every fishery.
Management is decisive
A fishery with catch limits, transparent assessments, effective monitoring and traceable landings can present a different biodiversity and depletion profile from an unverified source. Ask for the fishery’s species, fishing area, management status and chain-of-custody documentation instead of treating “marine ingredient” as a single category.
Why plant-based feed is not automatically greener
Cropland, land conversion and habitat
Replacing fishmeal with plants can shift pressure from the ocean to terrestrial ecosystems. The largest concern is often not the physical area occupied by a crop but whether producing it caused conversion of forest, savanna, peatland or other high-value habitat. A crop grown on existing farmland with strong land-use safeguards has a different footprint from one associated with recent clearing.
Fertilizer, runoff and eutrophication
Nitrogen and phosphorus applied to fields can be lost to rivers, lakes and coastal waters. Those losses contribute to algal blooms, oxygen depletion and marine eutrophication. The magnitude depends on soil, weather, fertilizer rate, drainage and local watershed management, so a crop’s country of origin is not enough; regional production practices matter.
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Water and processing
Irrigated crops can consume substantial freshwater, especially in water-stressed basins. Dryland production may use less irrigation but remain exposed to drought and yield variability. Protein concentrates and isolates require additional processing, and transport distances can alter the result. Suppliers should report water use together with the basin’s scarcity rather than presenting a single global average without context.
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Many plant proteins have amino-acid patterns that differ from a fish’s requirements, and some contain compounds that reduce digestibility. Heat treatment, fermentation, concentration and targeted amino-acid supplementation can address these issues. If a less digestible feed causes more feed to be used for the same fish growth, the environmental advantage of its ingredients can be eroded.
What recent life-cycle studies show
Algae compared with fishmeal in a 2023 analysis
A 2023 comparative life-cycle assessment modeled global-warming potential, water use, land use, marine eutrophication, freshwater eutrophication and biotic-resource use for fishmeal versus defatted Nannochloropsis meal. In the scenario using dry algal biomass followed by solvent processing, the algae meal had significantly lower impacts than fishmeal for global warming, water use, marine eutrophication, freshwater eutrophication and biotic-resource use. Land use was not significantly lower.
The result is scenario-specific, not a blanket verdict on every algae product. Cultivation, urea and pure liquid carbon dioxide were identified as important hotspots. Co-producing higher-value metabolites can improve the case for algae by sharing impacts and revenue across products. Different cultivation systems, energy sources and coproduct markets could change the comparison.
Raw-material location in a 2025 Atlantic-salmon study
A 2025 Nature Food study by Cottrell and colleagues modeled greenhouse-gas emissions, habitat disturbance, excess nutrient pressure and water consumption for Atlantic-salmon feeds. It found that where raw materials are produced and processed caused more variation within a feed than the typical difference between feeds described as fish-dominant and plant-dominant.
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That finding makes traceability a sustainability requirement rather than a marketing extra. The authors conclude that responsible sourcing will be critical for sustainable feed production across farming systems as new ingredients are developed.
Can salmon and other carnivorous fish grow without fishmeal?
Yes. NOAA Fisheries states: “Fish meal and fish oil are not nutritionally required for farmed fish to grow meaning that even carnivorous fish can be fed diets containing no fish-based ingredients.” The practical condition is that the finished diet must supply the target species’ amino acids, energy, essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals at each life stage.
NOAA also explains that farmed fish are fed diets specially designed for their nutritional needs. Removing fishmeal is therefore a formulation challenge, not a decision to feed fish an unsuitable raw crop. Protein concentrates, oils, supplements, fermentation and other ingredients can be combined to meet requirements. Performance must be checked with digestibility measurements, growth, survival, health and feed-conversion results.
How feed-conversion performance changes the environmental answer
Feed-conversion ratio (FCR) is the amount of feed required to produce a unit of fish biomass. A feed with lower-impact ingredients can lose its advantage if fish eat more of it, waste more nutrients or grow more slowly. Conversely, a marine ingredient with higher upstream impacts may have a smaller footprint per kilogram of fish if it supports efficient growth and low waste.
FCR is not a fixed property of an ingredient. Species, fish size, water temperature, oxygen, stocking density, feeding schedule, pellet stability and farm management all affect it. Request results for the target species and life stage under conditions comparable to the intended farm, rather than relying on a laboratory value from another fish.
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Origin and processing questions to ask a supplier
Use the following checklist when comparing commercial pellets or designing a farm ration:
- Identify every major ingredient. Request the species or crop, production country or fishing area, inclusion rate and whether the material is a whole product, trimming, concentrate or isolate.
- Check fishery evidence. For marine ingredients, ask for stock status, management documentation, catch method, traceability and the percentage made from processing trimmings.
- Check land-use safeguards. For crops, request evidence on deforestation risk, previous land use, irrigation and fertilizer management.
- Read the life-cycle boundary. Confirm whether fishing or cultivation, processing, transport, packaging, farm emissions and end-of-life are included.
- Examine allocation. Ask how impacts are divided among fishmeal, fish oil, human-food products and other coproducts, or among plant meal, oil and co-products.
- Request environmental indicators. Compare greenhouse gases, land occupation and land-use change, freshwater use and scarcity, marine and freshwater eutrophication, biotic-resource use, habitat and biodiversity.
- Verify nutrition. Obtain amino-acid, lipid, digestibility and antinutritional-factor data for the species and life stage.
- Check farm performance. Ask for independently measured FCR, growth, survival, pellet stability and nutrient-discharge results under relevant conditions.
- Assess continuity and cost. Confirm current price basis, minimum order, lead time, storage life, batch consistency and contingency suppliers. No single global cost or availability figure applies to all regions.
Decision examples: when each approach may be preferable
Prefer a marine ingredient with documented responsible sourcing when
- The fishery is demonstrably managed, traceable and within advised limits.
- A substantial share comes from unavoidable processing trimmings rather than additional whole-fish harvests.
- The ingredient materially improves digestibility, health or FCR for the target species.
- The alternative crop is linked to high land-use change, severe water scarcity or large nutrient losses.
Prefer a plant-based formulation when
- The crop is sourced from low-deforestation production with documented land, fertilizer and water practices.
- Processing and transport use relatively efficient energy systems.
- The formulation meets amino-acid and lipid requirements without sacrificing digestibility or FCR.
- Reducing wild-fish demand is a priority and the marine source cannot provide credible fishery evidence.
Consider algae or other novel ingredients when
- The cultivation system has a clear energy, carbon, nutrient and water profile.
- Hotspots such as urea, carbon dioxide and processing are measured and managed.
- Co-products can share impacts and improve economic viability.
- Performance data exist for the actual fish species rather than only for a laboratory model.
Common claims that need qualification
“Fishmeal is bad for the ocean.”
Unqualified, this is too broad. Whole-fish harvest from a poorly managed forage fishery can create serious pressure, while verified trimmings or well-managed fisheries may have a different profile. The fishery and allocation evidence determine the claim.
“Plant-based feed is green.”
Plant ingredients can remove direct demand for wild fish, but they may carry cropland, deforestation, irrigation, fertilizer and eutrophication impacts. The crop, region and processing route must be specified.
“Fish-free means sustainable.”
Fish-free describes what is absent from the formulation. It says nothing by itself about land-use change, water scarcity, emissions, nutrient pollution, biodiversity or feed-conversion performance.
“The lowest-carbon ingredient wins.”
Climate impact is only one axis. A feed with lower greenhouse gases can still have higher water scarcity, eutrophication, land or biodiversity impacts. Use a multi-indicator comparison.
A practical method for choosing the most sustainable feed
- Set the functional requirement. Define species, life stage, growth target, health constraints and acceptable FCR before comparing ingredients.
- Collect source documentation. Obtain fishery, land-use, water, processing and traceability records for each major ingredient.
- Compare like with like. Use the same life-cycle boundary, functional unit and allocation method for all feeds.
- Screen for unacceptable risks. Exclude sources with unknown origin, illegal or unverified fishing, recent high-risk habitat conversion or noncompliance with feed-safety requirements.
- Check the complete diet. Confirm amino acids, essential lipids, digestibility, pellet quality and nutrient discharge, not just the percentage of fishmeal.
- Validate on the farm. Track intake, FCR, growth, survival, water quality and waste during a controlled adoption period.
- Reassess regularly. Fishery status, crop locations, energy systems, prices and supplier practices change; a sustainability claim should have a date and a documented basis.
Bottom line
The most sustainable aquaculture feed is not defined by a fixed fishmeal percentage. It is a diet whose ingredients come from responsibly managed fisheries, low-risk agricultural systems or well-characterized novel production; whose processing and allocation are transparent; and whose nutrient profile delivers strong fish growth with little waste. Fishmeal can be problematic when it relies on depleted or poorly managed forage fisheries. Plant-based feed can be problematic when it drives land conversion, irrigation demand or fertilizer pollution. Compare the origin, processing, life-cycle indicators and farm performance of the actual formulation before choosing.
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