DEVELOPMENT OF INNOVATIVE AND EFFICIENT PROCESSES TO EXTRACT BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS SUCH AS ASTAXANTHIN, CHITIN, OR COLLAGEN FROM FISH AND CRUSTACEAN DISCARDS

The fishing industry (including extractive fishing and aquaculture), along with its processing and commercialization, is one of the most important economic sectors in Europe.

Specifically, Spain accounts for no less than 20% of the European Union’s (EU) total production, with the fishing and processing industry generating an annual turnover of €7.498 billion.

Every year, global discards from fishing activities (fish, mollusks, and crustaceans) exceed 40 million tons, which amounts to 25% of total production.

These discards include species considered “non-commercial,” biomass generated during fish processing, and by-products with low or no commercial value due to characteristics such as small size, inedible parts, etc.

In general, in the fishing industry, only 30%-40% of the total volume is transformed into products for human consumption (e.g., fish fillets or medallions). After processing, a huge amount of material (up to 70% in some species)—including shells, fins, heads, skin, or viscera—is discarded, categorized as “waste.”

Recent national and European regulations are promoting the valorization of discards. In this regard, Regulation 1380/2013 and its successors require all fishing vessels to retain, bring to port, and land all catches—those subject to quotas or legal minimum sizes, as well as underutilized commercial species with no market viability for human consumption—and proceed with their valorization. At the national level, the Draft Law on Food Waste encourages its reduction by promoting reuse.

Currently, the most common use of fishing by-products is for the production of fishmeal, fish oil, and fertilizers. Each year, 15 million tons of captured fish are used to produce these low-added-value products, without considering more valuable and sustainable uses for these biomasses.

Despite the traditionally low value assigned to fish by-products, it is possible to extract and valorize a significant number of bioactive compounds such as proteins (enzymes), protein hydrolysates (bioactive peptides), lipids such as polyunsaturated fatty acids, polysaccharides like glycosaminoglycans, astaxanthin, chitin, etc.

Currently, the fishing industry is focused on maximizing the commercial exploitation of primary fishing products, showing little interest in by-products/discards. This results in lost opportunities due to, among other reasons, insufficient investment in technologies that would allow these biomasses to be used for higher-value commercial applications.

This situation arises in a context where the world population is expected to grow by nearly one-third by 2050, increasing the global need for alternative, sustainable, and renewable nutritional resources, obtained within an economic model capable of meeting the growing demand for food, both for humans and animals, aligned with the pillars of a circular economy.

Given this current and future scenario, there is clearly a strong demand for new technical and organizational solutions to achieve better utilization of these biomasses from the fishing industry. It is within this context that the NUTRAMAR project is framed, with its main objective being the development of innovative processes and technologies for the extraction and valorization of high-added-value bioactive compounds from marine-origin by-products and discards.

Consequently, the project aims to optimize the concept of circular economy within the value chain of the fishing and aquaculture sectors through research, experimental development, and the transfer of its results to the market.