Success in byproduct utilization and marketing

The classic adage states, "The devil is in the details." There are few, if any, business challenges where this is truer than in making a profitable venture out of processing fish byproducts. In a simple survey of worldwide fish meal and/or fish oil producers we find that most of the long-term players obtain their raw material from directed and dedicated fisheries. Those operations, which rely on a byproduct stream, tend to fit one of two categories: either they serve a fishery that operates at least 180 days per year or they are subsidized by the primary fish processing facility. Traditional fish meal technology produces traditional fish meal. Advances in process have provided improved products that warrant prices at the high end of commodity protein ranges, i.e., low-temperature meal and low-ash meal. However, the capital resources required to manufacture these products are generally not supported by an adequate "byproduct time/volume ratio." Attempts to produce higher value products from processing waste streams have met with limited success due to three main issues. They are: (1) insufficient finished product volume to invite commercial interest, (2) lack of data that clearly removes the new products from the lower-priced commodity arena, and (3) an entrenched attitude among commercial interests that fish-based products are inherently variable in quality and supply. At Bio-Oregon we have begun to address each of these issues and have met with initial success.