Insights from ISFNF 2026: How fish nutrition is shaping innovation in aquaculture

In May 2026, nearly 300 researchers, industry leaders, and feed innovators gathered in Darwin for the aquaculture sector's principal nutrition conference, the International Symposium on Fish Nutrition and Feeding (ISFNF). With this year's theme, "Feeding innovation through partnership".  The conference tackled one of aquaculture's most pressing questions: how do we sustainably feed a growing global population, and what role does feed innovation play in getting there?

Fish nutrition remains the foundation of aquafeed innovation, with novel ingredients requiring nutritional validation before they can scale. Sustainability pressures are expanding beyond fishmeal and fish oil to soy, driving growing interest in circular and alternative ingredients. However, nutritional validation alone is not enough: cost, supply, and feeding technology present equally critical barriers to commercial scale. Overcoming these barriers will ultimately require sustained investment, long-term agreements, and cross-sector partnerships.

In this article, CFI's Corporate Engagement Manager, Dr Margaret Hegwood, shares her key takeaways from the conference.

Nutrition is the cornerstone of aquafeed innovation

This year’s ISFNF presentations covered everything from ensuring appropriate vitamin D levels for salmon to the sensitivity of tropical rock lobsters to the Earth’s magnetic field. But regardless of species or production system, a key takeaway from speakers was that nutrition remains the cornerstone for aquafeed innovation. In her keynote presentation, Thea Morken, Principal Researcher at Skretting, said, "Nutrition determines how much potential is realised [for novel ingredients]”. Novel ingredients must first be nutritionally validated before being considered for use at scale. 

This nutritional validation of novel ingredients is especially important in light of unstable supply and anticipated future shortages of fishmeal and fish oil (FMFO), which have historically been the nutritional backbone of aquafeed formulations. At this year’s ISFNF, roughly 20 presentations out of 48 (42%) focused on nutritional alternatives to replace, supplement, or reduce FMFO use in aquafeed. While a variety of novel ingredients were discussed, algal oil and single-cell proteins (SCPs) were examined most frequently, especially for emerging commercial species such as barramundi and yellow kingfish.

Beyond performance: How sustainability and resilience are affecting aquafeed nutrition 

The aquaculture sector is facing several simultaneous pressures, including the need to enhance resilience in the aquafeed supply chain and improve sustainability. Fish nutritionists must identify diets that optimise fish performance, while also considering these wider pressures on the industry. As a result, fish nutritionists are exploring alternative ingredients, formulations, and technologies that could meet the industry's health, nutrition, sustainability, and economic objectives while minimising trade-offs. For example, several presentations and posters at ISFNF this year combined data on nutritional outcomes with environmental data from life-cycle assessments (LCAs) to provide a holistic picture of the impacts of new ingredients. 

Further, sustainability considerations are now extending beyond FMFO to soy-based protein. There was a notable number of discussions on how to either replace soy or reduce its antinutritional factors–conference representatives think this trend is likely to continue, especially as pressures to meet deforestation-free commitments increase. Lukas Manomaitis from the U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC) (one of this year’s ISFNF sponsors) noted that soy is under increasing pressure to be replaced or improved, similar to FMFO. Indeed, evidence suggests that the historical trend of replacing fishmeal with soy has not necessarily reduced aquafeed’s environmental impacts; instead, it has only shifted them from the sea to land. Nonetheless, Mr Manomaitis made a compelling case that soybeans, as the first major FMFO replacement, provided the necessary platform to develop other novel ingredient categories; they are also a strong example of how innovation can also occur within an ingredient category: moving from basic soybean meal to soybean protein concentrate has delivered major benefits for the aquafeed sector. 

There was also a considerable focus on using circular ingredients in aquafeed, including two sessions on circular materials. These sessions predominantly focused on byproducts from wild-capture fisheries, aquaculture, and livestock agriculture. Some ingredients, such as protein hydrolysates and chicken byproduct meal, showed promising results in several of the nutritional studies presented. The use of animal byproducts may also help reduce reliance on FMFO sourced from wild-capture fisheries, but using these ingredients at scale in aquafeed must compete with several other industries, most notably pet food and biofuels. Whether the aquafeed sector can compete with the premium prices offered by these other sectors, sometimes twice as much for the same ingredient, has yet to be seen. Other novel circular ingredients, though, such as wine grape skins from Vinumar or olive extract from Lucta, provide benefits like improved fish health and fillet colouration without competing with other sectors. 

The gap between nutritional promise and commercial scale 

Nutrition is the first step in advancing feed innovation: ingredients that aren’t nutritionally validated cannot scale. But in many cases, several nutritionally validated ingredients fail at other stages of development. For example, the role of feeding technologies cannot be overstated: they are critical to ensuring optimal performance and returns, as they determine whether fish actually consume the feed they are provided. If feed characteristics, such as pellet stability, density, and palatability, are not ensured, feeding efficiency suffers. New processing and feeding technologies can help to ensure that nutrition reaches fish, such as CageEye’s unique hydroacoustic monitoring. 

Even more critically, several nutritionally validated ingredients remain too costly to invest in, cannot compete on price with conventional ingredients like soybean meal or FMFO, or, even when cost-competitive, cannot be produced in sufficient quantities to meet the needs of aquaculture producers. For most novel ingredients, including SCPs and algal oil, overcoming these barriers will require substantial investment, long-term agreements, and public support. CFI’s poster at ISFNF reiterated these challenges for novel ingredients seeking to replace fishmeal and fish oil. 

Are partnerships the missing ingredient in feed innovation?

Ultimately, feeding innovation will require partnerships as ISFNF’s theme implies. In particular, partnerships across the aquafeed supply chain will be necessary to ensure that the sector’s challenges are well-understood and that its nutrition, sustainability, and economic goals are met. CFI exists to connect foundational research in fields like fish nutrition with stakeholders seeking to improve the food system through feed innovations, and is keen to explore partnerships to support the development of this sector. 

As the aquafeed sector continues to navigate these challenges, CFI will keep tracking the science and the partnerships driving change. Stay up to date on our work translating research into insights by subscribing to our newsletter here.