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Due to the rising climate crisis, industries should strive to become as sustainable as commercially possible. Yet, reducing waste and reutilizing biomass is rather tricky, as it commonly steps away from the classical maximization of food output that industries have grown accustomed to in the last century. Rather, it involves taking a step forward and investing in interdisciplinary research, which involves actors from various areas such as production, quality control and supply chain management.
Yet, the innovation sector is sadly underrepresented in most Latin-American companies, which goes hand in hand with a lack of economic pressure for innovation and low government funding for research projects. Information is today's most valuable currency, and businesses integrate their processes around it as much as possible. As such, innovation should be at the center of any business and an active part of production and decision-making. The fishmeal and fish-oil industry centers around the extraction of biomass either from whole fish or from fish by-products. Over 40% of total fish weight is classified as by-products, including heads, viscera, skin, blood, frames, and trimmings. By-products are mostly destined for fishmeal and fish-oil production and, in turn, are most commonly used for the fabrication of animal feed and pet food products. It is predicted that the fishmeal and fish-oil world market will reach $15.66 billion USD by 2025. Currently, only 27% of the globally produced fishmeal and 48% of the produced oil are strictly derived from fish by-products. As is with other production sectors, innovation in the utilization of by-products has become a cornerstone for rendering businesses vying to remain competitive in today's market. By-products with low oil content are prime candidates for alternative uses. By innovating processes, other more specialized products can be extracted, thus opening the business to other potential markets. More often than not, this commonly helps optimize biomass use, producing less waste material and allowing manufacturers to better juggle different quality input materials, thus, in turn, allowing industries to become more sustainable. Here, some alternative added-value specialized products from fish by-products are briefly discussed. Fish-derived enzymes and molecules are prized for the differences they have from those found in mammals. Enzymes from cold-water fish (Cod, Salmon, Pollock, Haddock), such as proteases, lipases, and others, have the advantage of being functional at much lower temperatures than their mammalian counterparts, which in turn makes them highly desirable for specific products and industries, such as detergents, food, pharmaceuticals, and biofuel production. Though industrialization of enzyme production is difficult and expensive, nowadays methods have been developed that increase yield per batch and somewhat address the high scaling costs, making this a more viable investment.