Danish fish oil impurity case

On July 2, 2013, fish oil refining company FF Skagen, based in Denmark, was charged, along with two other companies, of illegally blending feed grade fish oil with technical grade fish oil and selling this as feed grade oil for use in fish feeds.  

IFFO understands that the technical grade fish oil which was blended with the feed grade oil had been derived from the distillation process to produce fish oil concentrates for the human nutraceutical market, such as the production of capsules.

Depending on the concentration method used, technical oils may contain ethyl esters of the fish oil, urea and alcohol (ethanol), which are not inherently toxic, although under the precautionary principle are deemed as unfit for consumption in the EU. Under EU regulations these by-products of the distillation process are deemed unfit for use for food or feed purposes and therefore must be used for technical purposes only (bio-fuel, paints, leather treatment etc). Their inclusion in fish feed is not considered to have posed a health risk to either the fish or the final consumer of the fish, though it is illegal under EU law.

The board of directors of Skagen are co-operating fully with the authorities and have dismissed the managing director following this incident.

FF Skagen are members of IFFO and the factory implicated in this practice had been certified under the IFFO standard for Responsible Supply of fishmeal and fish oil. As a consequence of these matters the certification body of the IFFO RS standard for the factory, SAI, has suspended the factory certification and is undertaking a full review of the company’s practices and procedures.

FF Skagen has posted more information on its website.

A typical softgel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)