Development of healthy marine ingredients from waste products from smoked rainbow trout

There is an increasing demand for healthy marine omega-3 oils as well as new functional proteins for human consumption. At the same time there is an increasing demand for fish oil as an ingredient in fish feed due to the growth in production of farmed fish. The aquaculture industry currently uses approx. 850.000 tons of fish oil per year, which is expected to increase significantly in the coming years. The demand for fish oil for human consumption has been estimated to 425.000 tons by 2017. The present production of fish oil from wild fish is 1 mio. tons/year. Due to sustainability issues it is not possible to increase the production of fish oil from wild fish further. A possible source of omega-3 oils for human consumption is waste products from the fish industry. At present only approximately 40 % of the fish is used for human consumption and the rest is turned into waste products. Rainbow trout is the main species produced in Danish fresh water farming. By-products from the filleting process (head, bones, tail and intestine) are at present turned into ensilage and sold to the mink industry with low revenue. The aim of the DANFOMEGA project is therefore to use these waste products for the development of new high quality omega-3 oils and protein products and to evaluate the potential of these ingredients in a number of food applications. One of the challenges when producing and using fish oils is to obtain good sensory properties and high oxidative stability. Therefore, the process for extracting the fish oil as well as the addition of antioxidants to prevent oxidation must be optimized. This presentation will include results from our work on these challenges.