Aker BioMarine warns omega-3 demand could outstrip fish oil supply next year

Aker BioMarine warns that traditional global omega-3 supplies are reaching a tipping point. The krill and algae oil supplier links these to limitations in traditional crude fish oil supplies and growing demand for omegas from consumers and industries, ranging from aquaculture to pet nutrition. 

In the first installment of our two-part series on the omega-3 market, Nutrition Insight meets with Ross Norris, general manager for Asia-Pacific at Aker BioMarine, who says that dependence on the Peruvian anchovy fisheries exposes the sector to supply shocks and price spikes. 

In the upcoming interview with Norris, we will examine krill oil as an alternative omega-3 source.

For now, he cautions brands to diversify omega-3 sources to ensure more resilient supplies. “Our modeling suggests that, as early as 2027, we could see that demand outstrips the ability of crude fish oil to keep up.”

He links this to supply disruptions in the fish oil market, combined with strong competition from aquaculture companies.

“For many years, fish oil has dominated the omega-3 category,” says Norris. “But the changing weather patterns mean that the fisheries providing the crude oil for this are no longer as reliable as they once were. The core vulnerability for the category is the dependence on the Peruvian anchovy fishery — probably about 50% of that Peruvian crude oil goes into human nutritional products.”

Supply disruptions

In 2026, The Marine Ingredients Organisation IFFO reported that cumulative fishmeal output of its members was running 45% behind the same period in 2025, with fish oil output down 26%. 

IFFO’s market research director Dr. Enrico Bachis said 2026 is expected to deliver a reduction in the supply of marine ingredients estimated at the lowest supply of fishmeal and fish oil since 2016. 

IFFO reports that raw material intake in Peru was still very low in October 2026, as the fishing season the country’s North-Center region stayed closed.Disruptions in crude fish oil supply, such as a lower catch, can send a “shockwave” through the whole industry, Norris adds, as companies scramble for volume.

“The result is effectively a price spike that flows through the whole value chain, and consumers end up wearing it.”

For example, Norris says that the supply shock from the 2023 El Niño event resulted in “30% higher shelf prices in Australia for the whole category in a single year,” although prices differed across individual products. At the same time, he says there was no change in the actual volume of fish oil sold.

“You’ve got this challenge of an excessive dependence on a single fishery for human nutritional crude oil.”

Aquaculture competition

In addition to the dependence on crude fish oil for omega-3s such as eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), Norris says that the global demand for these nutrients is not only driven by supplements. Other substantial users of these omega-3s include pharmaceuticals, food, infant nutrition, pet nutrition, and aquaculture, he adds.

“Around 80% of all crude fish oil produced globally goes into aquaculture,” he details.

“In the human nutrition space, when we get these spikes, obviously, it causes buyers to panic, but all of a sudden they find themselves up against buyers in the aquaculture space who are a lot more motivated.”

He explains that, for these buyers, crude fish oil accounts for a much lower percentage of their cost of goods. “They can afford to take price rises without sacrificing as much profit.”

Moreover, Norris says these buyers need sufficient supplies to keep their fish farms alive — it’s a matter of survival for their companies.

“The human nutrition buyers find themselves up against much more motivated buyers who quite readily will snap up all the volume, and they’re bigger buyers to begin with.”

Norris says that demand for omega-3s is going up from several industries, but that supplies are faltering.He also points to an increasing demand for fish oil and EPA and DHA omegas from a growing aquaculture industry, increased use of these nutrients in pet nutrition, aging populations, and Asia-Pacific's rising middle class.

“Demand is going up steadily, and supply is faltering.”

Impact of El Niño

Norris says that, in the past decades, there have been regular El Niño events. Each of these events led to a drop in the volume of fish caught from the open ocean, he notes.

“There’s no doubt there’s a very strong relationship between an El Niño event and a reduction in available crude fish oil if we narrow our focus to the human nutritional sense,” he adds.

Although brands are seeing this coming, he adds that, in the past, they’ve mostly been able to “ride out these changes.”

“Usually, there’s enough inventory in the whole value chain that has meant that the price increases haven’t come on so suddenly and haven’t been so severe. But each time, the price that products come down to is not quite as low as the previous low. There’s not quite as much inventory in the system.”

According to Norris, the industry is at a tipping point. “We’re seeing that some brands are still hoping that they can ride it out. They may only have a few SKUs, they may only buy one or two different fish oils, and a brand like that might be more inclined to try and ride it out.”

“But there are other brands that have ten plus products in the omega-3 category and huge markets to fulfill that are under threat of losing significant shelf space. For them, it’s a much more critical issue.”

Diversifying supplies

After the 2023 El Niño event, Aker BioMarine saw some brands take significant steps toward diversifying their source, while others tried to ride it out, says Norris.

“We believe that now is the time that you need to start taking active steps toward diversification,” he underscores.

He says brands are telling Aker BioMarine that fish oil prices are going up “by a huge amount.”

By diversifying omega-3 sources, buyers and brands can de-risk their value chain, resulting in a more stable omega-3 category in the longer term, says Norris.“Some people are even saying that the impact of that single ingredient is having a noticeable impact on the cost of goods, their cost base for their whole company,” adds Norris.

“Depending on what percentage of the revenue comes from omega-3 products, what their products are, and what oils are going in there, you’re seeing anywhere from a manageable blip to quite a significant impact on the bottom lines of businesses globally.”

Building resilient value chains

The best way brands can protect themselves is to diversify the source of their omega-3s, argues Norris. “That allows them to better cater to changing consumer needs, better deliver innovation, and provide a more stable financial return for their business.”

In the short term, he suggests that brands examine whether they can use “marine omega-3s” on their product labeling instead of fish oil, depending on local laws for ingredient names and pack claims. This could make it easier to use alternative sources of omega-3s to fish oil.

“Longer-term resilience is fundamentally in diversification of the sources,” he says. “It’s not about building up inventory or long-term contracts because we’re seeing suppliers not honor contracts.”

He notes that at times when supply is plentiful and pricing is low, suppliers want a contract because it gives them security. But if supply is scarce, suppliers often may not want to fulfill that contract because they know that there’s an opportunity to make a much higher price elsewhere in the market.

“We’ve spoken to buyers who are frustrated because they’ve had suppliers renege on contracts,” says Norris.

He notes that brands that thrived in the 2023 El Niño event usually had omega-3 products that were sourced from other ingredients, whether algae or krill oil.

“With some swift marketing changes, they could redirect consumers to these other products where the pricing wasn’t skyrocketing, and the messaging was a bit more consistent.”

Norris believes that, throughout value chains, brands will have to make decisions to move away from crude fish oil to a wider portfolio to protect their business. He notes that this will require brands to act now to understand what consumers want and think to determine how to guide them toward alternative omega-3 products.

Can algae oil close the price gap?

To help brands diversify their offerings of DHA and EPA, Norris points to alternative omega sources — krill and algae oil. 

According to Norris, algae oil prices are coming down as more players enter the category and the volumes of algae oils grow.Although krill oil is beneficial and more sustainable, as Norris will discuss in the next installment of our series, he notes that krill oil cannot absorb the whole global volume of fish oil, which is why sources such as algae oil are crucial.

“The prices of algae oils are steadily coming down as more players are entering the category and as the volumes of algae oils are increasing,” he adds. “I think that’s definitely closing the gap between fish oil and algae oil.”

Since the pressure on fish oil prices is growing, Norris says the gap with algae oil is getting close to a point where consumers do not feel any pain switching from one omega-3 source to another.

“There’s no doubt algae is a very good alternative, especially from a sustainability point of view,” he adds. “Fermentation versus a fishery is absolutely a great option.”

“It is probably a good next step for those who are looking to move away from fish oil,” Norris suggests. “In recent years, algae innovation has been the introduction of strains that deliver EPA in the oil as well as DHA.”

While those innovations are still relatively expensive, he says that the price of a DHA-based algae oil is “probably within a gap of maybe 15–20% to a concentrated fish oil — that price barrier is steadily disappearing.”

“If some of the price rises we’re hearing about now flow through to the shelf as quickly as we think they might, you’ll probably see that gap disappear within the next few months,” Norris concludes.