A researcher in Australia hopes to add value to the global seafood industry by reducing the amount of waste from fisheries and fish farms and extracting a key protein

Aquaculture and fisheries are two sectors of the seafood industry that make critical contributions to range of areas – from nutrition and local economies to the cultural life of coastal communities around the world. Fish products are among the most traded foods and their exports are essential for food security.

However, one of the fundamental concerns with both sectors is the amount of by-products, such as fish heads, tails, guts, skin and cells, that are generated. Much of this goes to rendering, is incorporated in low-value products like fertiliser, sent to landfills or is tossed back into the sea. But as the cost of waste disposal and the potential value of by-products both increase in line with broader consumer attention towards total product utilisation and waste minimisation, more research is being focused on the opportunities presented by seafood by-products.

Dr Nisa Salim of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, says fish by-products could be useful for the extraction of valuable proteins, in particular collagen. She says using fish by-products to obtain collagen not only reduces waste from the seafood industry, but also potentially eliminates the need for other animal-based collagen sources.

Together with her colleagues, Salim is developing a method to produce high-value collagen protein from fish by-products and help the seafood industry reduce its waste in an innovative way.

“We currently rely on animals such as cows, sheep or pigs to obtain collagen,” Salim told WF. “And yet we have sectors like aquaculture and fisheries that are known to generate huge amounts of low-value waste, such as fish scales or heads or bones, so why not add value to this waste by sourcing collagen from it? This puts the waste to good use, prevents it from going to landfill, and the result is a material that has significant value in sectors such as nutraceuticals or biomedicals. It’s a win-win situation. I wanted to find a sustainable way of sourcing collagen, and to be able to offer an ethical alternative to animal sources while providing value.”

Salim and her team are working with Sustainability Victoria, a state government office in Melbourne, and other partners to build a circular design strategy to use fish by-products and provide an innovative and sustainable route to manufacture collagen proteins. By producing collagen from fish by-products and adding that to products such as cosmetics, food and pharmaceuticals, the idea is to address the growing demand for collagen-based products and the lack of availability of primary material.

Repurposing fish by-products is an opportunity to address these needs while minimising the amount of waste that is generated each year, said Salim.