Pesk & Co High value-added commercial development of fish by-products for use in health and nutrition

According to data gathered as part of the European Biotecmar project, directed by the University of Bretagne Occidentale (2009-2012), total fish landed in Brittany amounts to 100,000 tonnes per year, only 50% of which is directly consumed as food. The remainder is exploited in bulk in different types of flour and oil and as minced frozen fish. Of this, some 8,000 tonnes per year of oily fish, salmonid and sardine by-products are destined for the industry. If the proposed European regulation obliging all catches to be landed is adopted, this potential resource will increase considerably.
Some by-products find a high value-added outlet in human foodstuffs, cosmetics or health products.

With this in mind, the PESK&CO project is proposing to develop innovative, analytical and operational tools for extracting and purifying new ingredients on an industrial scale for products in the biomendical, human and animal health and nutrition and healthy living fields. Work will involve extracting polysaccharides, mineral elements and indeed pigments from the heads, skin, bones, etc. The project will accurately analyse levels of activity of the principle active ingredients and detail their traceability (including the nature and lifecycle of the original by-product).
To guarantee optimum quality of the by-products, the project partners will conduct upstream studies of the sources from which the products are gathered and will look at all stages of the industrial processes: methods of organising the sorting, collecting and transporting of the by-products; by-product processing in relation to intended use (health product or animal foodstuff ingredient, etc.); researching new ingredients from these by-products; developing analytical tools for controlling traceability and ensuring quality; evaluating the physiological and functional properties of these ingredients; and lastly preparing the products for international markets.

The project will also focus on one specific source of by-products, namely salmonids, which pose more significant challenges than other species, notably their tendency to oxidize due to a high fat content. Work on salmon, a delicate raw material as a result of its high concentration of lipids which easily oxidize, will therefore demand and validate the highest levels of expertise. Once the processing methods have been tried and tested, the project will be extended to other native species of fish.