Salmon raised on chicken byproducts could soon appear on British supermarket shelves as producers look for more affordable alternatives to traditional feed.
Several of Europe’s largest fish-farming companies are replacing conventional fishmeal with feed derived from poultry.
The pellets are made from parts of birds that are unsuitable for human consumption, including bones, livers and brains. Feathers and other inedible material are generally left out.
Leroy Seafood Group, one of Norway’s biggest salmon producers and a Tesco supplier, has begun using feed made from poultry bones and organs across all of its offshore farms.
Mowi, the world’s largest salmon producer and a supplier to Sainsbury’s and Asda, has also said it intends to introduce poultry-based feed at farms in Scotland and Norway.
SalMar, the world’s second-largest salmon producer, said it began trialling chicken-based feed at selected farms in March.
The move has prompted criticism, however, with opponents describing salmon fed on poultry products as “unnatural and disgusting”.
Traditional fishmeal-based feed has doubled in price over the past two years, while chicken-based feed costs half as much per tonne. Pictured: A worker at Mowi displays granules used to feed salmon
Feeding salmon products derived from poultry was illegal in the UK until 2013, following rules introduced to prevent the spread of diseases including bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, commonly known as Mad Cow Disease.
The restrictions were later eased after research found no safety risk from poultry-based feed, as chickens do not carry the bovine prions—misfolded proteins responsible for transmitting BSE.
Professor Margareth Øverland, an aquaculture nutrition expert at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, told Our News Outlet: “It is safe to feed salmon on chicken byproducts.
“These products provide high-quality proteins comparable to those in high-quality fishmeal. They contain no antinutritional factors, are available in substantial quantities and are also valuable sources of lipids.”
The safety and effectiveness of poultry-based feed are well established, with salmon farmers in Chile and Canada having used similar methods for years.
For Europe’s major fish-farming groups, the shift has been driven largely by the soaring cost of conventional fishmeal.
Fishmeal is a nutrient-rich powder produced from fish bycatch and processing byproducts. Its price has nearly doubled over the past two years, while poultry-based products cost about half as much per tonne.
Professor Øverland said: “Growing global conflict, major climate changes and an exceptionally strong El Niño have limited traditional feed resources such as fishmeal and fish oil. As a result, the aquaculture industry is searching for alternatives.”
Some of the world’s largest salmon farmers are beginning to use chicken byproducts in feed as they try to reduce costs. Pictured: Salmon farms operated by Mowi, which plans to introduce poultry-based feed
Although salmon raised on poultry products is considered safe to eat, concerns remain over how clearly the practice is communicated to consumers.
Manufacturers are not required to disclose the ingredients used in the feed given to farmed animals, unlike the ingredients listed for finished food products.
Consumers may therefore have no way of knowing whether the salmon they buy was raised on fish-based feed or on products derived from chicken.
However, market research suggests that people aren’t likely to be happy about discovering what their fish has been eating.
A 2026 study by the food institute Nofima found that consumers in the UK and France were largely unaware of what actually goes into salmon feed.
However, Nofima researcher Florent Govaerts said that ‘chicken is met with strong scepticism and is associated with something unnatural and disgusting’.
As the major European suppliers start to adopt poultry–based feeds, it’s likely that some chicken–fed salmon will start to appear in UK shops, but the major supermarkets have a mixture of policies.
A spokesperson for Marks & Spencer told Our News Outlet: ‘We can confirm we do not use chicken or any land animal protein (LAP) in our salmon feed. We also do not sell any other salmon brands in the UK.’
Waitrose and Sainsbury’s both confirmed that their own–label salmon products are not permitted to contain poultry–fed fish.
Advocates for chicken–based feed argue that it is more sustainable than producing fishmeal, which requires catching vast amounts of edible fish and processing it into powder. Pictured: A ‘super trawler’ catching fish for the fishmeal industry
However, neither confirmed whether third–party brands used chicken–fed fish or whether the stores had a specific policy on what feeds these brands could use.
Tesco and Asda were contacted for comment but did not respond before the time of publication.
On the other hand, advocates for poultry–based feeds argue that using up unwanted chicken products is far more sustainable than fishmeal.
Fishmeal requires catching vast quantities of edible fish to feed a smaller amount of a different fish.
Overfishing has already severely depleted the fish stocks used to make fishmeal, and many critics now question whether the feed will be sustainable in the future.
Jørgen Skeide, feed manager at Lerøy, told the Financial Times: ‘With the scale of our operation, we needed an alternative to fishmeal… poultry meal was the only raw material that checked all of these boxes.’
Professor Øverland, meanwhile, believes that consumers will ‘accept these products’.
She adds: ‘They care about circular economy principles and because these products are safe and free of high–risk materials.’
