Decontamination of persistent organc pollutants in fishmeal and fish oil

Fishmeal and fish oil are the most heavily contaminated materials used in feed production, with products of European fish stocks more heavily contaminated than those from South Pacific stocks. The fish stock of concern for the north European industry is s prat and herring in the Baltic Sea and herring, sprat, sand eel and blue whiting in the North Sea. This difference in dioxin and PCB levels are reflecting the general pollution level in the respective fishing areas and will disfavour the North European fi shmeal and oil producers on the world market. The legislation levels were revised in November 2005 to include dioxin-like PCBs. Consideration will be given by 31 December 2008 to significantly reduce the maximum levels. The new levels shall be determined based on the technical possibilities of the most effective, economical viable decontamination procedure. To improve and reinforce the competitiveness of the European industry there is a need for development of new and cost effective decontamination solut ions. Fishmeal is an important nutrient in fish feed and can only to a limited extent be replaced by vegetable proteins without reduction in feed efficiency and growth. The fatty acid composition of farmed fish will also reflect the feed composition and inclusion of low dioxin vegetable oil will significantly reduce the level of long chain n-3 fatty acids. The main objective of the project is to develop a new oil extraction process to reduce the persistent organic pollutants level in fishmeal. The resea rch activity will aim to identity optimal processing conditions with respect to both decontamination efficiency and preservation of fishmeal and oil quality. The new oil extraction process is expected to have several advantages compared to a standard hexa ne extraction process. This will include the possibility of easy integration in an existing fishmeal processing line, use of a safe and non-flammable extraction medium and lower investment and operation cost.