IFFO, The Marine Ingredients Organization, has published the first ever Annual Report for the organization. With over half a century of history, IFFO’s work to assist and engage with the industry covers a broad canvas and this report gives a snapshot of the work in 2016. The report gives succinct summaries of IFFO’s core areas of work including stakeholder engagement, technical projects and market research. IFFO will present the report to members at this week’s annual meeting in Barcelona, which will be attended by 157 members from 27 countries.
It was another busy year for IFFO, with three hosted member events, attended by 869 delegates in total; 90 market reports, 24 of which focused on the fast growing Chinese market; and pioneering research from Stirling University. Information as always is key and in 2016 IFFO worked hard to expand its methods of data collection by gathering production and/or trade annual data for 109 countries; monthly data for 30 countries and weekly data for around 10 countries. Data is collected from multiple sources to ensure accuracy, with the most important source being IFFO’s members, which represents more than 50% of the total world production and between 75% and 80% of the total annual trade of marine ingredients worldwide.
IFFO continued its efforts in driving research for the industry, with the completion of a Stirling University study on byproduct use in fishmeal and fish oil production. The project was commissioned in 2014 to provide an analysis of raw material availability and estimates for the global quantity of fishmeal and fish oil that could be produced assuming that all byproduct could be utilized as raw material. Nearly 20 million tonnes of raw material are used annually in the production of marine ingredients, but the model showed an estimated 35 million tonnes available for marine ingredients production, should all byproduct be collected. This increases to a total of 45 million tonnes being available in 10 years’ time. The figures provided by this research will help to inform discussions about the future development of the industry, and are important in emphasizing the increasing contribution that byproduct will make to raw material supply.
IFFO Director General Andrew Mallison stated that “this report is intended to give an overview of who we are, what we have delivered in 2016 and what we are trying to achieve in future. We look forward to producing more reports of this kind in the future to draw together all IFFO’s important work.”
Read the full report here
