MOWI FEED AS

Their core work

Mowi Feed AS is the feed production subsidiary of Mowi ASA, the world's largest Atlantic salmon farming group, headquartered in Bergen, Norway. They develop and manufacture commercial aquaculture feed at industrial scale, with a strategic interest in replacing conventional fishmeal with sustainable alternative protein sources such as microalgae, insect meal, and single-cell proteins. In EU research projects, they function as the industrial end-user and commercial validator: they bring real production lines and volume to test whether novel feed ingredients and additives are technically feasible and market-ready. Their participation in biorefinery and feed additive research reflects a direct business need — securing a reliable, future-proofed supply chain for aquaculture nutrition as wild-caught marine ingredients become scarcer and more regulated.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their H2020 participation opened in 2019 with a focus on protein source substitution — evaluating whether microalgae, insects, and single-cell proteins could realistically replace fishmeal in aquaculture diets, with attention to consumer acceptance and market viability of the resulting food and feed products. By 2021, the focus had shifted upstream and became more technically specialised: OLEAF4VALUE introduced biorefinery processing, nanotechnology-based extraction, and molecularly imprinted materials to derive natural preservatives and health-promoting feed additives from plant by-products. This progression — from "what proteins can we use" to "what bioactive compounds can improve feed quality and safety" — suggests a maturation from ingredient substitution toward functional feed design.

Mowi Feed AS is moving toward functional feed formulation, combining novel protein sources with plant-derived bioactive additives, indicating they are building expertise across the full spectrum of next-generation sustainable aquaculture nutrition.

How they like to work

Mowi Feed AS has participated exclusively as a consortium partner across both projects, never taking on a coordinator role — consistent with their identity as an industrial end-user rather than a research-driving institution. Despite only two projects, they have engaged with 40 distinct partners across 15 countries, signalling that they operate within large, multi-actor Innovation and Research Actions where their value is industrial scale and commercial credibility. Working with them likely means access to real production infrastructure for validation trials, but not research leadership or consortium management.

Across just two projects, Mowi Feed AS has built relationships with 40 unique partners spanning 15 countries — an unusually broad footprint that reflects their participation in large pan-European consortia. Their network is primarily European, anchored in the food, feed, and biotechnology sectors.

What sets them apart

Mowi Feed AS brings something few consortium partners can offer: a direct line to one of the world's largest commercial aquaculture feed operations, where validated ingredients can move from lab to industrial-scale production without an additional commercialisation step. For researchers developing alternative proteins or novel feed additives, partnering with Mowi Feed means their results are tested under real market conditions, against real formulation constraints, by a company that has an immediate commercial reason to adopt successful outputs. This makes them a high-value validation partner for any food-system or biorefinery project targeting the aquaculture sector.

Highlights from their portfolio

• NextGenProteins
  The project's scope — validating microalgae, insect proteins, and single-cell proteins for commercial food and feed — maps directly onto Mowi Feed's core strategic challenge of replacing marine fishmeal, making their participation commercially consequential rather than exploratory.
• OLEAF4VALUE
  An unusual combination of olive leaf biorefinery, nanotechnology, and molecularly imprinted materials applied to feed preservatives and health ingredients — demonstrating Mowi Feed's willingness to explore advanced material science for functional aquaculture nutrition.