Biomass losses and circularity along local farm-to-fork: A review of industrial efforts with locally farmed freshwater fish in land-locked Central Europe

Biomass losses and circularity of aquaculture farm-to-fork are reviewed in this article, taking the example of an economically developed but land-locked territory in Central Europe. We found that some waste valorization channels of locally farmed and slaughtered fish biomass are already functioning in the region (mostly for pet food, hunting bait). There is neither control nor information on how much local aquaculture farm-to-fork losses are upcycled to the local human food chain. Despite most of them qualify in ‘category-3’ animal by-products (useable for aquafeed) or preventable losses. Factors to improve farm-to-fork resource use efficiency ‘locally’ include: (a) ‘at farm’ (supplementary feeding, captive culture conditions, fat content, breed, rested harvest techniques, harvesting season); (b) ‘towards fork’ (purging duration, acclimatization before slaughtering, stunning efficacy, bleeding and filleting relative to rigour mortis, additive-based cleaning, pre-cooling, boned or deboned, grinding or baadering); (c) ‘at fork’ (coating- or GRAS additives-based preservation, packaging, modern hurdle systems, freezing rate, interferences of freezing apparatus or packaging on freezing, storage temperature). From farm-to-fork, it is essential to understand that most fish processing by-products can be made edible or valuable by other means. Better utilization strategies exist via low-cost value-added fish products, innovative dishes or utility products (e.g., feedstuff, fertilizers, industrial products, luxury items). Although upcycling to human food chain is priority, technological hurdles (prone to spoilage, bones in product, taste, safety) are associated with edible products but are solvable. More difficult things to overcome are at the fork (culinary industry, communication with society, future generations). Those are reviewed.