| Fish is becoming increasingly popular as a food in Austria, at the same consumers place an increasing value on local production. At the same time, Austrian aquaculture companies are facing major challenges, such as rising prices for fish feed, a key input factor for operational costs, especially in trout production. In addition to general inflation, the reasons for the rising prices include limited marine raw materials (for fishmeal and fish oil), strong competition for raw materials (e.g. from the pet food industry) and global uncertainties regarding the availability of raw materials (effects on supply chains COVID-19, Ukraine war, weather extremes such as El Niño etc.).
As part of the “AquaFeed” project, a comprehensive analysis of options to produce and sell a regional, sustainable and affordable fish feed for predatory fish species in Austria, using regional raw materials, is carried out. Conventional and organic aquaculture production are covered. The analysis includes the existing project landscape in order to use existing knowledge and expand it at the same time.
Different questions are addressed:
Status quo: Which aspects have already been addressed in projects that have been carried out and which aspects can support the research project?
Feasibility: Under what conditions is high-quality fish feed production from regional raw materials technically and logistically feasible?
Marketability: In which segments/niches and at what pricing would there be sufficient demand for a product made from regional raw materials?
The aim of the “AquaFeed” project is to obtain well-founded statements as to which technical, logistical and market-specific aspects are most promising for regional production, to make recommendations as to which designs of regional, sustainable fish feed production make the most sense and should therefore be pursued further, but also which changes of the current framework conditions would be necessary. This will serve as a basis for future steps towards the realization of regional fish feed production in the future. |