We source all our marine ingredients from well managed fisheries and do not source from illegal & unregulated fisheries.

In the wild salmon are predatory carnivores, eating wild fish and other animals as their source of protein and fat. Our marine ingredients, fish meal and fish oil are produced in specialist processing plants from fresh whole fish or trimmings from fish caught for human consumption. The fish are tested for freshness and then cooked. Fish meal is the cooked and dried mainly protein part of fish. The dried material is milled to provide a high protein powder. Thirty years ago fish meal made up almost 50% of a fishes diet, today it only accounts for between 5-10%.

Fish oil is extracted by pressing the cooked fish before the protein part is dried. The liquid that is removed from the press is separated into fish oil and water. The water component is dried and the soluble protein added back into the fish meal. The separated fish oil is highly sought after for direct human consumption, aquaculture and pet foods. Until recently fish oil was our only source of marine Omega 3 fats like EPA and DHA. Fish require marine Omega 3’s, so while we have reduced the amount of fish oil used, we still require some. 

Committed to reducing pressure on wild stocks, BioMar has focused on using other sources to replace the nutrients that marine ingredients historically provided. Fish in Fish out ratio is a way of measuring the overall quantity of wild fish used to grow 1 kilogram of farmed fish. In Australia, an average FIFO ratio for BioMar fed salmon is 0.87, meaning that for every 1,000g of farmed salmon produced, only 870g of wild fish was used. We express that as a ratio of 0.87:1. In comparison, wild salmon consume approximately 10,000g of wild fish to grow their bodies by 1,000g, a FIFO of 10:1. On FIFO ratio alone, BioMar fed Tasmanian Atlantic salmon is 10 times more sustainable than wild salmon.