The Feed of the Future for Fish, Pigs, Poultry and Laying hens

Axfoundation and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) bring together the entire value chain — from researchers and farmers to feed producers and food companies — to tackle two of the food system’s greatest challenges: resource waste and the environmental impact of feed. Imported soy and fishmeal from wild-caught fish, common in today’s feed, are replaced with resource-smart ingredients: mycoprotein, mussels, and insects that convert side streams and nutrients from forests, oceans, and the food industry into protein. The first product to reach stores is “Framtidens fisk”, Future Fish, raised on circular feed. In 2025/2026, pork, poultry, and eggs are also expected to reach Swedish plates.

Feed accounts for about 50–90% of the greenhouse gas emissions from chicken, fish, pork, and eggs. For farmed rainbow trout, it’s up to 92%.

The Issue

Feed accounts for the largest share of climate impact from pigs, fish, poultry, and eggs, and often contains imported soy and fishmeal from wild-caught fish. Soy requires vast areas of land, while fishmeal contributes to overfishing. Together, overfishing and conversion of rainforests and other land to agriculture for animal feed are two of the greatest drivers of global biodiversity loss. At the same time, Sweden fails to make effective use of the massive resource streams available in its forests, seas, and food industry. Every year, 1.3 million tons of food waste are generated in Sweden from manufacturers, retailers, restaurants, and households. Much of it doesn’t return as high up in the resource hierarchy as it could, but is instead turned into biogas, fertilizer, heat, or electricity. We want to change that.

Today’s animal feed has a bigger impact on climate, the environment, and resources than most people realize. Feed rarely gets the spotlight, yet it is one of the keys to a sustainable food system.

— Madeleine Linins Mörner, Program Director, Future Food, Axfoundation

In Future Feed, the protein sources soy and fishmeal are replaced with insects, mycoprotein, and mussels, all which tap into resources already available. Photo: Älvdalslax

Insects (Black soldier fly) are raised on food industry by-products. Photo: Ragn-Sells

Mycoprotein (fungal protein) is produced from side streams of the Swedish forest industry. Photo: Cirkulär

Farmed mussels (Blue mussels) help reduce eutrophication in the Baltic Sea. Photo: Ecopelag

Our Solution

In the Future Feed for Fish, Pigs, Poultry and Laying hens project, stakeholders across the entire value chain work together to reduce resource waste and the environmental footprint of feed. In addition, the project also aims to strengthen Sweden’s food security and supply resilience, as well as domestic agriculture. The goal is to establish pilot production of new protein ingredients and feeds, along with pilot production and sales of products from fish, poultry, laying hens and pigs raised on feed made with resource-smart protein sources benefiting biodiversity. The ambition is that, over time, these feeds can replace a large share of today’s conventional feed.

Researchers at SLU are evaluating the nutritional composition and digestibility of innovative protein sources — such as mussels, mycoprotein, and insects — that make use of side streams and nutrients from oceans and forests as well as by-products from the food industry.

In collaboration with feed industry, new feed formulas are being developed and trialed in practice by Swedish farmers and aquaculture producers. Products from the pilot trials are then assessed in sensory tests by researchers at the School of Hospitality, Culinary Arts and Meal Science (RHS), Campus Grythyttan, before reaching restaurants and grocery stores in 2025/2026.

Project Objectives

The ambition of the Feed of the Future project is to:

Develop, test, and evaluate ingredients that can be included in future feed for laying hens, poultry, pigs, and fish, and compose feed using these ingredients. The feed will be based on ingredients that have a low climate impact, a high degree of circularity, a positive effect on biodiversity, a low level of attractiveness for other consumption, and reduce the amount of new nutrients into the Baltic Sea area.

Pilot-scale farming in Sweden of laying hens, poultry, and pigs raised on Future Feed.
Pilot sales of fish, meat and eggs from animals raised on innovative feed.
Business modeling and market potential assessment of new feed solutions.
Identify and address legal or regulatory barriers to speed up the transition to sustainable, circular feed.

The project runs from 2023–2026. Feed ingredients and digestibility were evaluated in 2023–2025. Feeding trials for fish, pigs, poultry, and hens take place in 2025-2026 after which products from the project will reach the market.

Sweden’s food system relies heavily on imports. By identifying alternative protein sources and putting industries’ by-product to work, we reduce vulnerability.

— Christian Sjöland, Project Manager, The Feed of the Future for Fish, Pigs, Poultry and Laying hens, Axfoundation

Results

The first product to reach grocery stores is Future Fish—a Swedish rainbow trout from Älvdalslax, raised on Future Feed. To our knowledge, this is the first time in the world that fish raised with mycoprotein has been sold commercially. But the result isn’t just the fish itself—it’s also the progress made along the way.

Future Feed

In Future Feed for Fish, imported soy and fishmeal from wild-caught fish are replaced with insects, mycoprotein, and mussels. These resource-smart ingredients are based on circular flows and reduce pressure on biodiversity:

Insects (Black soldier fly) convert food by-products into protein.
Mussels (farmed Blue mussels from the Baltic Sea) help reduce eutrophication by absorbing nutrients and keeping them within the food system.
Mycoprotein (fungal protein) turns forestry residues into protein.

Researchers at SLU have evaluated the nutritional composition of these protein sources and analyzed their digestibility for different species. The findings show they are high-quality proteins with the potential to replace soy and fishmeal. Formulation work and practical feed trials for pigs, poultry, and laying hens are now underway together with commercial feed companies and Swedish farmers.

Future Feed is a Swedish innovation that connects forests, seas, agriculture, and the feed industry into a circular system.

“Framtidens fisk” (Future Fish) is available in fall 2025 at Hemköp, Urban Deli, and via Fiskhallen Sorunda.

“Framtidens Fisk” (Future Fish)

“Framtidens fisk” is a Swedish rainbow trout from Älvdalslax, raised on Future Feed. It is sold September–November 2025 to consumers via select Hemköp stores and Urban Deli, and to restaurants through Fiskhallen Sorunda.

Sensory tests at the School of Hospitality, Culinary Arts and Meal Science (RHS), Campus Grythyttan show that the fish tastes just as good as fish raised on conventional feed — and it grows just as well.

Swedish Protein Industry

Future Feed is already helping strengthen Sweden’s self-sufficiency, and it has the potential to become a fully domestic, import-free feed. Several steps have been taken to develop resource-efficient protein industries in Sweden. Over time, these new protein inputs can replace soy and fishmeal in feed. That, in turn, bolsters Sweden’s supply resilience.

Ragn-Sells has built Sweden’s first insect protein plant in Orsa.
Ecopelag has completed the next stage of its mussel-meal factory in Västervik.
RISE Processum has inaugurated a development center for bioreactor-grown inputs, including mycoprotein (fungal protein) made from forestry residues.
Cirkulär has conducted promising tests within the project that lay the groundwork for the next phase of its scale-up.

The project also explores decentralized protein production: pilots of container-based insect farming are now underway in Boden and Klippan. They are also testing feeding laying hens and fish with living whole larvae.

Barriers to Scale

Significant strides have already been made in Sweden’s feed and protein industries, but more is needed. To make Future Feed widely available will require commitments from retailers, feed producers, and primary producers; capital to scale up domestic production of protein ingredients; and a regulatory framework that favors domestic, circular proteins.

Future Feed for Fish proves that circular food solutions work in practice — now we need the right market conditions and supportive regulations to enable large-scale production of Swedish protein ingredients for feed.

— Christian Sjöland, Project Manager, The Feed of the Future for Fish, Pigs, Poultry and Laying hens, Axfoundation

Questions & Answers

Curious why we don’t just eat the mussels ourselves instead of using them in feed? Or how well the fish actually grow? Or maybe about PFAS in fishmeal?

You’ll find it all in Questions & Answers.

Our Work

Axfoundation leads the project together with SLU. Our role is to unite the value chain and bridge research with practice — developing sustainable, profitable business models. Together with retailers and food service companies, we help contextualize how these products can best reach the market.

Facts about Future Feed

The three superheroes in Future Feed are mycoprotein, insects, and mussels. They replace soy and fishmeal, which have enormous environmental impacts. But why are these ingredients so smart?

Land use: Soy requires thousands of times more land per kilo of protein than mycoprotein, and almost 200 times more than insects.

Climate footprint: Soy has 2–5 times higher climate impact per kilo of protein than mycoprotein and insects.
Resource-smart: Insects, mycoprotein, and mussels make use of side streams and nutrients that aren’t used efficiently, moving them higher up the resource hierarchy.
Circular: They close loops — recycling nutrients from the sea, the forest, and the food chain instead of letting them be lost or incinerated, as in a linear system.
Biodiversity: By replacing soy and fishmeal with insects, mycoprotein, and mussels, the pressure on biodiversity is reduced. Farmed mussels help curb eutrophication in the Baltic Sea. Soy monocultures harm ecosystems. Fishmeal production drives overfishing because it is produced by removing large quantities of fish from oceans.

Scaling up from “Five Tons of Fish”

The project builds on lessons learned from the Five Tons of Fish project, which proved it’s possible to farm resource-smart, tasty fish while using an untapped raw material resource; food waste. The rainbow trout from the pilot was raised on feed containing insects.

The Feed of the Future project scales up this approach — from a proof-of-concept to an industrial scale initiative with more ingredients, more animal species, and larger volumes — unlocking the potential for a sustainable feed industry based on circular side streams.