Fishmeal demand can redirect edible fish away from local markets and into feed for farmed seafood, livestock, pets and fertilizer. The conflict is sharpest in parts of West Africa, where factories may pay more for sardinella and other small pelagic fish than local processors can afford. The result is not that every fishmeal plant uses food that would otherwise be eaten, but that a supply chain designed as “marine ingredients” can turn whole, nutritious fish into an export commodity before nearby households get access to it.
What fishmeal is—and why its use matters
The Food and Agriculture Organization definition quoted in Rose George’s account is “the clean, ground, dried tissue of undecomposed whole fish or fish cuttings, either or both, without the extraction of part of the oil.” In practice, fish are cooked, dried and ground into meal; oil is recovered separately. The products are sold as fishmeal and fish oil, often grouped by the industry under the term “marine ingredients.”
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Some marine ingredients genuinely come from trimmings and scraps that would otherwise be discarded. The controversy concerns “reduction fisheries”: catching whole fish specifically to reduce them into meal or oil. Anchovies, sardines, herring and sardinella can be suitable for direct human consumption, yet still be routed to factories when feed buyers offer the highest price.
Live Science’s 2026 account of George’s reporting says more than 5 million tons of fishmeal are produced globally each year. It also reports that about 90% of the fish used for fishmeal is suitable for people. Those estimates are attributed to George’s account; the source page does not publish an independent methodology for each figure.
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How edible fish move from African waters to feed markets
1. A factory competes with local processors
Factories buying in Senegal, The Gambia and Mauritania can pay cash and purchase large volumes at the landing site. Small processors often work with less financing, limited cold storage and no equivalent subsidies. Rose George summarized their position: “The fish processors tell me that they cannot compete with the prices that fish factories will pay for sardinella.”
2. The catch is reduced instead of sold as food
Once delivered to a reduction plant, whole fish are cooked, pressed, dried and milled. The resulting meal and oil have standardized specifications and can be shipped long distances. They are then blended into feed for aquaculture and livestock, pet food, fertilizer and other fish-derived products.
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3. Export demand determines the destination
The reported chain links catches in West Africa with European feed markets and, in some cases, Chinese-owned factories and fleets operating in Mauritania. George’s account says half a million tonnes of wild fish caught in African waters are sent to Europe each year—fish that, in her estimate, could have fed 33 million Africans. China uses nearly half of all fishmeal and fish oil, while France takes 70% of Mauritania’s fish oil, according to the same reporting.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsThese numbers describe a reported pattern, not a complete customs dataset. They should not be read as proof that every farmed salmon, prawn or other aquaculture product contains fish from West Africa. Some retailers cited in the account deny using West African fishmeal or fish oil, and supply chains differ by company and product.
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Why local food businesses struggle to match factory prices
| Factor | Reduction factory | Local food processor |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer | Large feed, livestock, pet-food or fertilizer markets with export demand | Nearby consumers and domestic or regional food markets |
| Payment and volume | Can buy industrial quantities and pay the landing price factories set | Often buys smaller lots and has less working capital |
| Infrastructure | Dedicated cooking, drying and milling equipment | More dependent on ice, smoking, drying and manual processing |
| Price pressure | Benefits when global feed prices rise | Must keep fish affordable for local buyers |
| Traceability described in the account | Exports can move through complex chains; EU illegal, unreported and unregulated-catch documentation rules do not cover fishmeal | Fish is sold closer to where it was landed, but informal trade can still be hard to document |
Fishermen therefore face a difficult choice. Some Senegalese, Gambian and Mauritanian fishers supply factories because the plants pay better. At the same time, the account describes overcapacity in pirogues, with boats chasing smaller fish as pressure on stocks increases. A higher dockside price can improve a fisher’s immediate income while reducing the volume and variety of fish available to processors and households.
The scale of the West African concern
One Gambian fishmeal factory reportedly used 40% of the country’s entire fish catch in one year. That figure, attributed to George’s reporting, illustrates how a single industrial buyer can become a dominant part of a national fish economy. It does not mean every factory reaches that share or that all of the catch was edible species destined for local plates; the reported point is the bargaining power created when one plant buys a large fraction of landings.
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Changing Markets Foundation’s 2019 investigation, as summarized in George’s account, found a recurring pattern in India, Vietnam and The Gambia: foreign factories arrive, take fish, pollute, and are followed by fishermen reporting fewer fish. This is an observation from an investigation, not a universal causal finding for every plant. It nevertheless identifies three connected risks: access to the resource, environmental impacts around processing sites and declining catches for artisanal fleets.
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Food security versus “marine ingredients”
The industry’s argument
The industry association IFFO says marine ingredients “play an essential role in global food security.” The argument is that fishmeal and fish oil can supply concentrated nutrients, support aquaculture production and make use of material that people would not otherwise eat. Where plants use verified trimmings, reduction can fit a circular system rather than compete with food.
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The opposing argument
Francisco Marí of Bread for the World rejects the idea that turning edible fish into feed automatically improves food security. “It’s just for prawns and salmon — they are not necessary foods; they are a luxury,” he says. “Indirectly, we are eating your fish.” His criticism is about allocation: people in fishing communities lose access while affluent export markets receive seafood raised with feed made from wild fish.
Both positions can be true in different supply chains. Feed made from processing waste has a different food-security impact from a plant buying whole sardinella that local processors could have smoked, dried or sold fresh. The decisive questions are what species were caught, whether the fish were edible, who could afford them at the landing site, and whether the catch was legal and traceable.
What to check when judging a fishmeal supply chain
- Human-food availability: Is the raw material documented as trimmings, or are whole edible fish being targeted?
- Conversion and nutrition: What feed benefit is obtained, and what quantity of wild fish was required to produce it?
- Price and livelihoods: Could local processors realistically match the factory’s price and payment terms?
- Legality and traceability: Can the buyer identify the vessel, landing site, species and destination? The account notes that European illegal, unreported and unregulated-catch documentation rules do not cover fishmeal.
- Ecological pressure: Does the fishery target smaller, lower-trophic species that support food webs and artisanal fisheries?
- Value capture: Which businesses retain the margin—fishers, local processors, exporters or overseas feed users?
These tests prevent a simple “foreign versus local” explanation. A local fisher may choose a factory because it pays more, while the community as a whole loses processing jobs, affordable protein or stock resilience. Conversely, a well-regulated plant using unavoidable byproducts can create value without removing a food fish from the market.
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- Separate waste-based meal from reduction fisheries in records and labels. Buyers need species, landing and material-origin data rather than a generic “fishmeal” category.
- Close the traceability gap. Export controls should follow fishmeal and fish oil, not stop at products intended for direct human consumption.
- Strengthen local processing. Affordable credit, cold storage, ice, transport and reliable market access would help processors compete with a factory’s cash and volume.
- Set science-based limits on small pelagic fisheries. Monitoring must account for food-web effects and the needs of artisanal fleets, not only factory demand.
- Require meaningful community safeguards. Licensing, pollution controls and public reporting should cover factory siting, water use, waste and employment.
- Make feed sourcing transparent. Aquaculture and livestock buyers should disclose the species and origin of marine ingredients and explain when alternatives or verified trimmings are used.
Why the headline is a food-policy question
The phrase “they cannot compete with the prices that fish factories will pay” captures the core imbalance: a local processor sells food into a market constrained by household incomes, while a reduction plant sells standardized ingredients into global feed markets. If edible fish are diverted, the issue is not simply whether fishmeal is useful. It is who gets first claim on a shared resource, who bears the ecological and social costs, and whether the trade creates more food security than it removes.
For the full investigation behind these claims, see Rose George’s book Every Last Fish: A Deep Dive into the World of Fishes and Fishing, published by Granta Books.
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