Major salmon farms to switch from fish to chicken-based feed to cut costs

Three of Europe’s largest salmon farming companies - Lerøy, Mowi and Grieg - are moving to feed their fish with poultry-derived meals. Lerøy has already rolled out the new feed on all its offshore sites, Mowi intends to follow suit, and Grieg is conducting trials. This marks a reversal of a historic prohibition in the EU and Britain, where animal-based feed other than fish was banned over disease fears.

Although Norway is not an EU member, its firms operate farms off the Scottish coast, and the EU Commission has now allowed poultry feed as long as cannibalism is not a risk. The change is driven by a sharp rise in the cost of traditional fishmeal, which has doubled in two years, while chicken feed costs roughly half as much. With growing demand from markets such as China, producers expect the cheaper diet to improve profitability and address consumer concerns about feeding salmon with non-fish animal products.