Expired food can be turned into feed for fish
FOOD waste is increasing: Some estimates suggest consumers worldwide throw out around a quarter of what they buy, even as inflation takes hold in wealthy nations and, worse again, millions of people in elsewhere endure malnutrition or sometimes famine.
Consumption of seafood is also on the up, with China and the United States seeing between 6% and 10% annual increases in demand in the five years up to 2022, according to Dutch lender Rabobank.
But there could be a way to cut food waste while limiting the downsides of this rising demand for fish. According to the Global Seafood Alliance (GSA), Ming Hung Wong of The Education University of Hong Kong has developed formulae mixing Chinese herbal medicines with expired rice, wheat, vegetables, fruit and meat to make pellets to feed fish.
Wong, who has been working on the pellets since 2009, said his recycled food waste is less likely to contain contaminants than “trash fish” usually used as feed.
“Turning residual materials in food waste into resources is also environmentally friendly,” Wong told the GSA, which says growing “pressure on the ocean’s resources” means aquaculture needs to widen its sourcing of fish feed.
Rising demand for seafood has spawned a growing aquaculture industry, in turn adding to food inflation by increasing competition for the items needed to nourish farmed fish.
While levels of estimated food waste vary, Harvard University estimates that “up to 40% of all food produced goes uneaten” in the United States, with almost all of it ending up in landfills.
Management consultancy Mckinsey & Company last year estimated global seafood demand would grow by 14% by 2030 – an increase that will likely have to be met through aquaculture as pressure grows on supplies of ocean-going or “wildcaught” fish.