Researchers seek to put mackerel on the menu for meagre
Under-utilised wild caught fish species such as bogue and Atlantic horse mackerel are to be tested as potential ingredients in feed for farmed meagre in Europe.
Meagre (Argyrosomus regius) is less well known than its relatives, seabass and sea bream, but is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, phosphorus, protein and vitamin D, and has high quality white meat with a neutral taste.
Annual global production of the fish is a modest 50,000 tonnes but its potential is large, and it offers farmers some advantages over bass and bream, say researchers.
Meagre - which in Europe is farmed in Greece, Spain, Croatia and Portugal - is harvested when its weight is between 1.5 and 3kg, for an average value of €5-14 per kilo. Its harvest size can be reached in only 18 months, when farmed in warmer waters, while seabream reaches only 400 grams during the same time.
The fast growth means less energy is needed to produce biomass and the costs of production are lower.
Meagre is also a robust species that thrives at temperatures as high as 20˚C, which is an important asset in an era of increasing sea temperatures due to climate change. The fish is also more resistant to bacterial diseases experienced by other fish species.
Wasting a resource
The project EUFish_SustainableGrowth, funded under the European Union’s BlueBio programme and co-funded by government agency Xjenza Malta, aims to develop a new feed for meagre – a voracious fish eater – by utilising bogue, which is a type of sea bream, and Atlantic horse mackerel. These species are considered by-products of fisheries and are often discarded by fishers who want to use their quotas for more profitable fish, and / or because the fish don’t meet the minimum size limit for their species. Up to 40% of trawled bogue and Atlantic horse mackerel are returned to the sea, dead.
Utilising these fish for fishmeal and fish oil for aquafeeds would reduce waste production and ensure that nearly all parts of the catch are used effectively, say researchers.
EUFish_SustainableGrowth is led by Professor Tiziana Pepe at the University of Naples Federico II, while Maltese aquaculture research company AquaBioTech Group is a fundamental partner of the project that designed the innovative aquafeeds. AquaBioTech Group’s researchers, led by project coordinator Stela Karovic and head of RDI department Dr Simona Paolacci, carried out a sustainable harvest of bogue and Atlantic horse mackerel and sent it to Icelandic project partner Matis, which will extract fish meal and fish oil from the biomass.
To be trialled in Malta
When these products will be ready, a Greek company will include them in aquafeeds following the recipe designed by fish nutritionist Dr Giovanni Marco Cusimano. When the feed containing this sustainable source of protein and lipids is ready, it will be tested on meagre in Malta.
EUFish_SustainableGrowth also focuses on exploring consumer acceptance of meagre. The species is not well known and is not often found in supermarkets, although is suitable. Consumers often require abundant portion-sized products, in pre-packed formats, say researchers, and this represents a market possibility for meagre, that can be processed into fillets, and made available at low price in different ways, such as skin-on, skin-less, loins, pieces, cubes, breaded or battered portions.
They add that if scientists and policy makers work together to promote the species and develop an increasingly sustainable farming system, meagre could soon become as common as seabream and seabass in the Mediterranean.
AquaBioTech Group’s participation in the project is supported by government agency Xjenza Malta as part of the BlueBio ERA-Net Cofund, and the project receives co-funding from the European Union under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 817992. More about the Blue Bio Cofund can be found here.
