Off the coast of Portugal’s Algarve region, a quiet revolution in fish farming has begun. For the first time, experimental aquafeed designed to fortify fish against disease and stress is moving out of the lab and into the open ocean.
The push comes from Pep4Fish, a project funded by the European Union’s post-pandemic recovery instrument through Portugal’s Recovery and Resilience Plan. Its mission: to overhaul how farmed fish are nourished while shrinking the industry’s reliance on scarce marine ingredients. With aquaculture now providing half of all seafood eaten globally, the stakes for making production both resilient and sustainable have never been higher.
The offshore trials are unfolding at Seaculture, a Jerónimo Martins Agro-Alimentar subsidiary operating in the Atlantic. The company serves as the consortium’s real-world proving ground, testing novel feed formulas under authentic commercial conditions. These feeds incorporate protein hydrolysates, advanced ingredients created by breaking down proteins from underused raw materials into highly digestible compounds. The result amounts to a precision nutritional tool that bolsters fish robustness, accelerates growth, and aligns squarely with circular bioeconomy thinking.
Early signals look promising. Pedro Encarnação, Seaculture’s executive director, confirmed that initial laboratory data showed strong indicators for growth rates and survival. Now his team wants to see whether those gains hold up at sea. “We are evaluating fish performance with these new diets in a production environment,” he stated.
The transition from controlled experiments to offshore cages marks a pivotal leap. It represents a direct test of whether nutritional science can solve pressing operational headaches, including production system fragility, ingredient supply volatility, and end-product consistency. The feeds also target reduced mortality from bacterial outbreaks, a persistent economic drain on producers.
At its core, Pep4Fish pursues circularity. By transforming undervalued biological streams into high-performance feed components, the initiative aims to decouple aquaculture from finite raw materials. Encarnação framed the dual payoff succinctly: stronger animal welfare translates into a superior final product.
Nine partners power the effort: AgroGrIN Tech, B2E CoLAB, CIIMAR, the Portuguese Catholic University’s School of Biotechnology, ITS, Savinor, Sebol, Sorgal, and Seaculture. Operating under Portugal’s national Blue Bioeconomy Pact, the coalition channels its collective expertise into feed innovations that merge sustainability with resource valorisation. As results from the Algarve trials roll in, the findings could reshape how a critical global protein supply chain confronts its environmental and operational limits.
