According to data provided by IFFO which encapsulates metrics from members that make up 50% of global fish oil production, most reporting regions including Chile, the USA, Spain and several African nations saw gains.
This is largely due to comparisons made to Perus output, which last year was impacted by the natural phenomenon El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)—a climate pattern involving the unusual warming of surface waters in the Pacific Ocean, Dr. Enrico Bachis, market research director at IFFO, told NutraIngredients.
The event is determined by sea temperatures of 0.5°C or higher than the natural base temperature and lasts for five consecutive overlapping three-month periods. In 2023, it was “particularly strong” with sea temperatures increasing by much as 1.9°C.
The impact of El Niño incurs a drop in fish production. However, as temperatures decreased to normal at the end of 2023, healthy anchovy biomass meant high fishing quotas were given in 2024 which allowed for larger catches than in the previous year.
This increased production of fish oil is likely to affect global pricing. According to Dr. Bachis, based on past patterns and market economics, sellers tend to have more power than buyers due to the demand. This then means that if supply drops, prices may go up quickly, and vice versa.
Pricing is also in part determined by South America due to output, as well as the percentage of fat in Peru’s fish oil, which is currently reported as average (around 3%).
European production
Dr. Bachis explained that European countries did not contribute to the positive trajectory due to the variation in waters and species being affected by different biological patterns and environmental challenges.
“Compared to Peru, where there is one huge fishery targeted for fishmeal and fish oil, Europe works with many different species, often primarily targeted for direct human consumption,” he said.
“The variety of species involved and the higher dependence on by-products proceeding from processing plants makes the European context exposed to bigger challenges, both on the natural and market fronts.”
There are may different used for producing fishmeal and fish oil in Europe, all of which will vary in their biomass content from year to year. Looking at both whole fish and by-products, it is the combination of the biological and environmental conditions for all the species that determine the total catch and thus the total production of fishmeal and fish oil in Europe.
“For example, the last reading of the Baltic herring biomass has suggested a bigger biomass, so in 2025 quotas are higher than in 2024,” Dr. Bachis said.
“On the contrary, the latest reading of the Blue whiting biomass is pointing to lower values, so quotas this year are lower than in 2024. For Capelin, scientists were unable to spot the biomass altogether, so no quota has been granted this year.”
In carrying out biological studies for all fisheries across Europe, every year presents a different mix of variety and therefore granted quotas. Currently, the biological parameters of each species are assessed by the Denmark based International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES).
In addition to environmental factors, market fluctuations affect the availability of raw materials for fish oil in any given year in Europe.
“If the marine ingredients factories cannot match the price for the fish raw material that the direct human consumption (DHC) market pays to the fishermen, fishermen will sell to the direct human consumption market rather than to the marine ingredients industry,” Bachis said. “This can happen especially for species such as herring and mackerel, whose primary destination is DHC.”
There were certain challenges in 2024 that have continued into 2025, such as availability of raw materials therefore reduced production.
“Climate change seems to play a big role in complicating scientists´ attempts to find and estimate the fish shoals,” Bachis said, noting that the natural cycle of species and environment does mean that some species’ biomasses change so drastically that it is as if they disappear and reappear across centuries.
“These recent years may have just happened, with 2024 and 2025 just happening to have seen lower quotas for most fisheries—2026 could be the opposite,” he said.
Sustainability concerns
Sustainability concerns are frequently highlighted in the debate over omega-3s sourced from marine versus algae origins, however as Dr. Bachis explained, maximum sustainable yield (MSY) exists as a benchmark for sustainability in fisheries.
MSY is the highest possible annual catch that can be sustained over time by keeping the stock at the level producing maximum growth. Controlling the amount of fishing activity is key to targeting this MSY, with it widely applied to most of the fisheries targeted for fishmeal and fish oil production.
The largest is the Peruvian anchoveta fishery, which benefits from collaboration between government, science and industry on data capture on stocks, for example, with those data being used to feed into models for quota setting.
Since the set-up of the fishing quota system in 2009, Peru’s Government has set the industrial anchovy quota below 35% of the fishery’s total biomass.
“The best proof of the proper technical and scientific management of the anchovy is that in the last decades, the biomass of this species has remained stable in a range of 6 to 12 million metric tons (MT),” Dr. Bachis said. “Peru’s cumulative fishmeal production from January to March 2025 is more or less at the same level when compared to the same period in 2023.”
This year, the global production of fishmeal and fish oil combined is on track to reach around seven million MT , which is consistent with the average annual production over the last decade.