2026 State of The Industry Report

Single-Cell Proteins

This report evaluates single-cell proteins (SCPs) as an alternative to fishmeal in aquaculture, assessing their nutritional performance, scalability, sustainability, and safety in commercial use. Findings indicate that SCPs are a credible and increasingly competitive protein source for aquafeeds, with a safety profile that compares favourably to conventional marine ingredients.

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About the Report

Global fishmeal supply is structurally constrained, yet aquaculture's continued growth depends on it. Rising demand, wild-catch quotas, and variability in pelagic fisheries performance are placing sustained pressure on the sector.

SCPs are protein-rich ingredients derived from microbial biomass, produced through fermentation. They deliver a balanced amino acid profile and nutritional performance comparable to fishmeal, without relying on marine resources.

This report is the second in CFI's State of the Industry series on novel aquafeed ingredients, following the 2025 State of the Industry Report on Algal Oil. The series evaluates the technical performance, scalability, sustainability, and safety of emerging alternatives to fish meal and fish oil, providing an evidence base for sustainable industry growth.

SCPs are nutritionally viable substitutes for fishmeal. They combine high protein content, balanced amino acid profiles, and good digestibility, supporting growth and feed efficiency on par with fishmeal. Additional functional benefits include improved survival, gut health, and immune function.

Up to 81% protein: Comparable to or exceeding high-quality fishmeal.

Fishmeal replacement: Trials show SCPs can replace a meaningful share of fishmeal, with up to 100% replacement in shrimp and up to 50% in certain fish species, including seabream and bass, while maintaining or improving growth, feed efficiency, and survival. Inclusion rates typically reach around 30% of the total diet.

Fillet quality: SCP inclusion can improve fillet colouration, though texture and flavour may be affected at higher inclusion rates. Effects are source-dependent: microalgal SCPs maintain normal taste profiles, whereas bacterial SCPs can produce detectable differences.

Viable as a fish meal replacement

SCPs are gaining traction in commercial aquafeed formulations. Continued advances in fermentation and strain development are expected to extend their use across a wider range of species, both as protein replacements and as functional additives.

SCPs are best positioned today as a complementary protein source, diversifying aquafeed inputs rather than displacing fishmeal. Some SCPs are priced competitively with fishmeal, but scaling remains constrained by high capital intensity, feedstock access, and sensitivity to input costs. The pace of commercial adoption will depend on resolving these constraints alongside sustained demand from the aquafeed sector.

Competitive pricing: Methanotrophic SCP is reported at around USD 1,500/MT, within the historical range of high-quality fishmeal. Other SCP pathways may be less competitive.
Capital intensity: Commercial-scale facilities require USD 80–330M in upfront investment, and per-tonne costs are highly sensitive to plant size, falling from around USD 10,000–12,000 per MT of capacity at smaller scales to under USD 3,000 per MT at larger scales. Joint ventures combining industrial partners, state-backed capital, and access to low-cost feedstocks offer a credible pathway to de-risk capital-intensive projects.
Volume growth: Global SCP production is currently estimated at 30,000–40,000 MT annually in 2025, and is projected to grow to 12.5 times by 2030, reaching 150,000–500,000 MT. Large-scale facilities are already operational or under development in China and Saudi Arabia.

Strong potential for growth

SCP production is approaching commercial scale, but realising the projected 12.5-fold increase in supply by 2030 will depend on sustained capital investment, long-term offtake agreements with aquafeed producers, and access to low-cost feedstocks. These conditions will be critical to lowering unit costs and establishing SCPs as a mainstream aquafeed ingredient.

SCPs decouple protein production from wild fisheries and, in some systems, from land-based agriculture, reducing pressure on finite marine and natural resources. Broader environmental performance varies significantly across organisms and production systems, with the largest gains coming from circular feedstocks and renewable energy.

Decoupling from wild fisheries: One tonne of SCPs can replace the protein from up to six tonnes of wild-caught fish, eliminating bycatch, habitat disturbance, and overfishing pressure. Gas-based fermentation pathways are also largely independent of land-based agriculture.
Greenhouse gas emissions: SCPs can match or outperform fishmeal's footprint, particularly when using industrial waste streams or renewable energy. The most efficient system can achieve an emissions footprint as low as 0.32 kg CO₂e per kg of protein.
Land use: SCPs generally use more land than fishmeal when primary agricultural inputs are required, though selected yeast and bacterial systems can match or improve on fishmeal's footprint.
Water use: SCPs generally use more water than fishmeal, though certain bacteria-based systems achieve comparable or lower water use.

Decoupling aquaculture from finite marine resources

Over 90% of wild fish stocks are already fully exploited or overfished, and industry analysis projects fishmeal supply-demand imbalances emerging as early as 2028. SCPs offer a means to shift feed production from wild-caught fish to closed, land-based fermentation, allowing aquaculture to grow while respecting the ecological limits of the oceans.

SCPs benefit from established safety frameworks and familiar production systems. Microorganisms and fermentation have a long history of safe use in animal nutrition, while closed, controlled production avoids many of the contaminant and ecological risks associated with wild-caught fishmeal.

Regulatory status: SCPs are approved for use in aquafeed in major markets, including the EU and North America, building on decades of safe use of yeast-based ingredients in animal feed. Regulatory gaps remain in several other key aquaculture markets.

Contaminant risk: Closed production eliminates the marine bioaccumulation pathways that introduce heavy metals, dioxins, and PCBs into wild-caught fishmeal, reducing exposure risk for farmed species and end consumers.

Ecological safety: Production takes place in closed, controlled systems, offering a more contained ecological risk profile than marine-sourced ingredients, with lower risks of effluent and pathogen release.

Promising support from regulators and certifiers

Closed fermentation systems largely eliminate the contamination risks inherent to marine ingredients, and yeast-based SCPs benefit from decades of established use in animal feed, providing a strong precedent for safety and regulatory acceptance. Broader uptake across key aquaculture markets will depend on expanding regulatory approvals and growing support from certification schemes.

MicroHarvest_84_Final-mirrored_edited.jp

Single-cell proteins are protein-rich ingredients produced by fermenting microbial biomass, such as bacteria, yeast, microalgae, or fungi. Production can draw on a wide range of feedstocks, including natural gas, agricultural by-products, and industrial sidestreams. Nutritional characteristics and unit economics vary by microorganism and feedstock.

Production involves four main stages:

Strain selection: Microbial strains are selected for protein yield, amino acid profile, and digestibility.
Fermentation: Production is scaled up in bioreactors. Methanotrophic bacteria are cultivated in gas-fermentation reactors; yeasts and heterotrophic microalgae in stirred-tank fermenters; phototrophic microalgae in closed photobioreactors or open ponds using light and CO₂.
Harvesting: Once the target cell density is reached, biomass is separated from the culture medium and concentrated into a slurry.
Processing: Biomass is dried and stabilised for storage and transport. Most SCPs are sold as dried meals to feed mills.

SCPs are emerging as versatile ingredients across feed systems

SCPs have diverse applications in aquaculture and livestock feed, with emerging uses in the food sector. In aquaculture, SCPs are a viable substitute for fishmeal, providing high-protein biomass for high-value species such as salmon and shrimp. They form part of a broader transition toward alternative and circular feed ingredients that improve the resilience and sustainability of aquaculture.

Up to 100%

Fishmeal replacement rate in shrimp; up to 50% in certain fish species.

150,000–500,000 MT

Projected global SCP production by 2030.

0.32 kg CO₂e

Minimum greenhouse gas emissions per kg protein in SCPs.

Recommendations

Closing the gap between early commercial deployment and mainstream adoption will require coordinated action across the aquaculture value chain.

SCP producers: Improve strain efficiencies, integrate renewable energy, and co-locate production near low-cost, circular feedstocks to strengthen unit economics and sustainability performance.
Aquafeed producers: Expand partnerships with SCP suppliers to validate performance at scale across key species, and establish long-term offtake agreements that provide the demand signal needed to attract investment in new production capacity.
Investors: Support the development of large-scale production facilities to help producers achieve economies of scale and accelerate commercial deployment. Blended finance structures and joint ventures offer a replicable model for de-risking capital-intensive projects.
Policymakers: Expand regulatory approvals in key markets and implement supportive financing for novel feed ingredients in aquaculture.
Civil society and certifiers: Build awareness of SCPs' benefits for climate, food safety, and biodiversity to inform consumer demand and industry procurement, and expand certification body support to drive broader market uptake.

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Single-Cell Proteins

2026 State of the Industry Report

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