Omega-3 raw material reports show promise

After more than a year of uncertainty, the supply of raw material from the Peruvian anchovy fishery is trending up, according to the latest fisheries reports and data gathered by the Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3s (GOED).

A strong El Niño event in 2023 had caused Peruvian fisheries managers to close one of the two annual fishing seasons altogether and restrict the second. This fishery, which in good years is the world’s most abundant by overall biomass, accounts for more than 70% of the supply of EPA and DHA for dietary supplements worldwide.

The 2023 harvest was the lowest since the 2015/2016 El Niño event.

El Niño effects

El Niño events, which occur on an irregular cycle spanning several years, cause the surface waters off the coasts of Peru and northern Chile to warm significantly. The area is subject to strong upwelling from the Humboldt Current, which brings nutrients to the surface and feeds a massive growth of plankton, on which the anchovy feed. Warm surface waters interrupt this cycle, causing the fish to disperse and leading to weak spawning and a higher proportion of juvenile fish.

In 2023, Peruvian fishery authorities cancelled the first season altogether. In the second season, generally the smaller of the two, the fishing fleet landed 1.1 million tons of fish in the late October to late December. That compared to 1.8 million tons landed in the same season in the fall of 2022.

The first fishing season earlier this year was a welcome rebound from the dire 2023 conditions.  The fleet brought in more than 98% of the 2.48-million-ton quota. Peruvian fisheries authorities set fishing quotas before the start of every season.

Reports of fisheries' demise premature

Luis Icochea, a professor at Peru’s La Molina Agrarian University and a former fisheries regulator, said the country’s fishery regulation scheme is well positioned to avoid over-exploiting the recovering fishery. Quotas are set for each fishing season based on real time reports of the estimated overall biomass and are limited to 25% of that amount.

The fishery, Icochea said, “has been hit hard in recent years as sea warming temporarily pushed the anchovy away, but it did not [make them] disappear — nor will it. Talking about irresponsible fishing or resource over-exploitation is nothing more than a myth, and science confirms it.” Icochea made his comments in an interview with the fisheries publication SeadfoodSource.

Icochea said regulators are likely to set a quota for the upcoming second season, too. That process, however, won’t be completed for several weeks until the last of the sampling data comes in.

Market managed to grow through supply bottleneck

The market has continued to grow even in the face of the severe supply constraints. GOED’s latest market report showed the overall volume of omega-3 ingredients was 124,480 metric tons, for a 1.4% year over year increase. GOED has observed that omega-3 suppliers typically have inventory on hand so raw material bottlenecks like 2023 are not catastrophic, assuming they don’t persist.