F3 Challenge Prize Money Doubles
US$70,000 will be awarded in each category: salmonid, shrimp, and other carnivorous species
June 30, 2020—The F3 Challenge – Carnivore Edition —a sales competition designed to accelerate the development and adoption of fishmeal and fish oil substitutes in feeds—has doubled its prize to US$70,000 per category. Awards will be given to the contestants that produce and sell the most ‘fish-free feeds’ in each of three categories—salmonid, shrimp, and other carnivorous species—without using wild-caught fish or any marine-animal ingredients.
Five companies have already registered for the contest, and most are seeking partners. For a list of current participants, including contact information, visit: https://f3challenge.org/participants. Contest registration is currently open, and a new timeline for the competition will be announced at a later date.
The feeds for all categories must not contain any ingredients consisting of or derived from marine animals, including but not limited to, fish, squid, shrimp, or krill. For official contest rules, visit: https://f3challenge.org/.
Each year, an estimated 16 million metric tons of wild fish are caught exclusively for use as fishmeal and fish oil in global food production. Salmon aquaculture, one of the fastest growing food production systems in the world, supplies roughly 70 percent, or 2.5 million metric tons, of all salmon produced. Salmon farms use over 20 percent of the fishmeal and 60 percent of the fish oil consumed by the aquaculture sector.
Today, over half of the global shrimp supply is farmed. Global shrimp farming production, which reached nearly 4 million metric tons in 2018 according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, is also one of the dominant consumers of the global fishmeal supply.
A recent study found that if ‘business as usual’ continues, forage fisheries will reach ecological limits by 2037. The F3 Challenge aims to make it unnecessary to use wild fish in feeds, so that they can remain in the environment for other species, and aquaculture’s growth becomes unconstrained from wild resource availability, assuring greater food security in the future.
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The Future of Fish Feed (F3) is a collaborative effort between NGOs, academic institutions, and private partnerships to accelerate the commercialization of innovative, substitute aquaculture feed ingredients to replace wild-caught fish.