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

Axfoundation and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) bring together researchers, farmers, feed producers, and food companies to develop the feed of the future. The project shows how imported soy and fishmeal can be replaced with ingredients such as mycoprotein, mussels, insects - resource-smart Swedish alternatives that turn side streams and nutrients from forests, the sea, and the food industry into protein. Following the success of fish and eggs, Future Pig is now making its way onto menus.

Future Feed shows how Swedish side streams from forests, the sea, and the food industry can replace the soy and fishmeal used in today's feed.

The Issue

What animals eat matters more than many people realize. Today’s animal feed often relies on imported soy and fishmeal made from wild-caught fish. Soy requires vast areas of land, while fishmeal contributes to overfishing. Together, land-use pressures linked to soy production and overfishing are major drivers of global biodiversity loss.

At the same time, vast amounts of resources in Sweden’s forests, seas, and food system remain underutilized. Some side streams from the food industry are already used in animal feed, but a large share is instead turned into biogas, biofertilizer, or energy even though it contains nutrients that could be put to higher-value use in the food chain.

Feed rarely gets the spotlight, but it is one of the most important levers for creating a resource-efficient food system.

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

Soy and fishmeal are replaced with resource-smart insects, mycoprotein, and mussels. Photo: Älvdalslax

Insects (black soldier fly larvae) are raised on side streams from the food industry.

Mycoprotein is produced from side streams from Sweden's food and forestry industries. Photo: Cirkulär

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

Our Solution

In The Feed of the Future for Fish, Pigs, Poultry and Laying Hens, stakeholders across the value chain work together to improve resource efficiency, reduce the environmental impact of animal feed, and strengthen Sweden’s preparedness and agriculture.

The project is testing new Swedish protein ingredients such as mycoprotein, mussels, and insects – an important step in the industry’s long-term sustainability efforts.

The starting point for the project is that feed should be based on resource-smart ingredients with low environmental impact, a high degree of circularity, and limited competition with ingredients suitable for direct human consumption. These ingredients should reduce pressure on biodiversity and help improve the nutrient balance in the Baltic Sea region by reducing reliance on imported feed ingredients and making use of nutrients already present in the system. Over time, the aim is for these ingredients to replace a large share of today’s imported protein ingredients.

The project aims to:

develop, test, and evaluate feed ingredients for laying hens, broiler chickens, pigs, and fish;
establish pilot-scale production of new protein ingredients and feed;
raise laying hens, broiler chickens, pigs, and fish in Sweden at pilot scale using the feed;
sell the project’s fish, eggs, chicken, and pork through stores and restaurants;
assess the market potential and economic viability of the new feeds;
identify barriers to accelerating the transition to circular feed systems.

The project runs 2023-2026.

Sweden’s food system depends on inputs from other countries. By identifying alternative protein ingredients and making better use of industrial side streams, we can reduce that vulnerability.

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

Results

The project has shown that new Swedish protein ingredients can be used in commercial fish farming, egg production, broiler production, and pig production.

During 2025–2026, Future Feed fish, eggs, chicken and pork were sold in stores and served in restaurants. The project results are now being analyzed, and the evaluation of the feed and raw materials will be released in winter 2026.

The project also shows that circular Swedish protein ingredients made from side streams can work throughout the value chain – from research and feed production to farming and sales.

Future Feed

In the project’s feed, imported soy and fishmeal made from wild-caught fish have been replaced with protein ingredients sourced from Swedish seas, forests, and food-industry side streams:

Insects: Black soldier fly larvae that convert side streams from the food industry into protein.
Mussels: Farmed blue mussels that help reduce eutrophication in the Baltic Sea by absorbing nutrients from the water, allowing those nutrients to be reused in the food system.
Mycoprotein: Fungal protein produced by fermenting side streams from the forestry and food industries.

Researchers at SLU have evaluated the nutritional composition of these protein ingredients and their digestibility in different animal species. The results show that they are high-quality protein ingredients with the potential to replace some of the soy and fishmeal used in animal feed. Mycoprotein from Cirkulär produced through wet fermentation and mycoprotein from Dapibuset produced through solid-state fermentation have both been evaluated with good results. Mussel meal also showed promise as a protein ingredient in broiler feed, with crude protein and methionine digestibility comparable to the control diet.

Working with the feed industry, the project has developed new feed formulations that have been produced by companies including Lantmännen and Svenska Foder. The feeds have been tested in production by Swedish farmers and aquaculture producers, including Älvdalslax, Viking Fågel, Tå Gård and the SLU Swedish Livestock Research Centre at Lövsta.

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

Swedish-produced mycoprotein can be used in pig feed while maintaining good digestibility, animal welfare and taste.

Future Pork

Future Pork was raised at Tå Gård on soy-free feed containing Swedish-produced mycoprotein. The mycoprotein was produced by RISE in Örnsköldsvik through fermentation of side streams from the Swedish forestry industry. The feed was produced by Lantmännen.

The results show good digestibility and nutritional quality, and indicate that Swedish-produced mycoprotein has the potential to replace soy in pig feed. Sensory evaluations by the School of Hospitality, Culinary Arts and Meal Science at Örebro University found that Future Feed Pork matched the reference products in quality, with a more pronounced nutty flavor in both pork neck and pork chops.

Future Feed Pork is supplied by Kötthallen Sorunda and will be served at Gothia Towers and other venues during fall 2026.

Future Eggs were sold at Urban Deli in spring 2026.

Future Egg

Future Eggs come from free-range laying hens at the Swedish Livestock Research Centre at SLU. The hens were fed a soy-free diet containing Swedish mycoprotein as a protein source. The feed was produced by Svenska Foder and the mycoprotein by Seaqure Labs. The eggs were sold and served at Urban Deli in Stockholm in spring 2026.

In sensory testing, Future Fish was described as having “a fresh, nutty flavor with a juicy, smooth texture that melts in the mouth.”

Future Fish

Future Fish is Swedish rainbow trout from Älvdalslax, raised on feed containing mycoprotein from Cirkulär, insects, and mussel meal from Ecopelag instead of soy and fishmeal. It was the first product from the project to reach the market and was sold in fall 2025 through Hemköp, Urban Deli, Fiskhallen Sorunda, and selected restaurants. To our knowledge, this was the first time anywhere in the world that fish raised on feed containing mycoprotein was sold commercially.

Product quality

Sensory evaluations by the School of Hospitality, Culinary Arts and Meal Science at Örebro University found that products from animals fed Future Feed matched or exceeded the quality of the reference products. In taste tests with some of Sweden’s leading chefs, rainbow trout raised on insect-based feed stood out for its flavor and texture, with chefs describing it as tasting like wild-caught fish and having a better texture than the reference fish.

Building a Protein Industry

Project partners have contributed to building resource-efficient protein production capacity in Sweden.

At its insect protein facility in Orsa, Ragn-Sells has shown that several side streams not currently used in animal feed can be converted into valuable feed ingredients by raising black soldier fly larvae.
Ecopelag has completed the next stage of its mussel-meal facility in Västervik.
RISE has opened a development center for bioreactor-grown ingredients, including mycoprotein made from forestry residues.
Cirkulär has produced Swedish mycoprotein through wet fermentation of side streams from the forestry industry.
Dapibuset has developed solid-state-fermented mycoprotein that has been evaluated in the project, helping broaden Sweden’s base of circular protein ingredients.
Seaqure Labs has developed solid-state-fermented mycoprotein from food-industry side streams. It has been used in digestibility studies and feeding trials with laying hens.

The project is also exploring decentralized protein production through trials of container-based insect farming in Boden and Klippan. Additional trials are testing the use of whole live larvae as feed for laying hens and fish.

The project has demonstrated that new protein ingredients can be produced in Sweden using resources already available in the system. Over time, they could replace a larger share of soy and fishmeal and strengthen Sweden’s security of supply.

Barriers to Scaling Up

Significant progress has been made, but more is needed for these protein ingredients to reach commercial scale. This will require commitments from retailers, feed producers, and primary producers; investment to scale up domestic production of protein ingredients; and regulations that support Swedish, circular protein sources.

Future Feed has shown that circular food solutions work in practice. The next step is to create the market conditions and supportive regulatory framework needed for large-scale production of Swedish protein ingredients for animal feed.
– Madeleine Linins Mörner, Program Director, Future Food, Axfoundation

Our Work

Axfoundation leads the project together with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). Our role is to bring together stakeholders across the food value chain and bridge the gap between research and practice to develop sustainable, profitable business models. Working with grocery retailers and foodservice companies, we also help bring the products to market.

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.

Facts about Future Feed

The three superheroes of Future Feed are mycoprotein, insects, and mussels. They replace soy and fishmeal, which have a major environmental impact. So what makes these ingredients so smart?

Less land required: Producing soy requires up to 1,000 times more land than producing mycoprotein and almost 200 times more land than producing insects.

Resource-smart: Insects, mycoprotein, and mussels turn side streams and nutrients into protein, moving underused resources higher up the resource hierarchy.

Circular: They help close nutrient loops by recovering nutrients from the sea, forests, and the food chain instead of allowing them to be lost to the environment or incinerated in a linear system.
Biodiversity: Replacing soy and fishmeal can reduce pressure from land use, overfishing, and other drivers of biodiversity loss. Farmed mussels absorb excess nutrients and help reduce eutrophication in the Baltic Sea.

Reduce import dependency: All of these ingredients can be produced and scaled up in Sweden. One of the Swedish side streams tested in the project – which is not currently used in animal feed – could yield more mycoprotein than the amount of certified soy Sweden imports for animal feed each year.

Facts and Figures

About half of all agricultural land globally, and about half of Sweden’s agricultural land, are used to produce animal feed.
The food system accounts for about one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions and is the largest driver of biodiversity loss.
Every year, 3 million metric tons of food waste are discarded in Sweden alone by manufacturers, retailers, restaurants, and households. Some of it is used as animal feed, but a large share does not return to the food system and instead goes to biogas, biofertilizer, heat, or electricity. Across the EU, 58 million metric tons of food waste are discarded each year.
Sweden imports about 195,000 metric tons of certified soy for animal feed each year, mainly from Brazil.
Soy is often grown in large-scale monocultures that can harm ecosystems. Fishmeal contributes to overfishing because its production relies on large quantities of fish taken from the sea.
Soy used in Swedish feed is almost always sustainability-certified through schemes such as ProTerra, RTRS, and KRAV, but it still requires cropland and contributes to import dependency. In Sweden, approximately 17% of the soy used in commercially manufactured conventional feed goes to cattle, 70% to poultry, and 13% to pigs. Sweden does not produce fish feed domestically, but producing the salmon consumed in Sweden requires about 9,000 metric tons of soy – roughly half the amount used for pigs.
Swedish livestock production uses significantly less soy than the EU and global averages.

What Is a Side Stream?

Side streams are underused resources that can be put to higher-value use. In this project, the focus is on making better use of resources already in the system and returning them to the feed system: excess nutrients in the sea, side streams from forestry and agriculture, and side streams from the food industry.
- Sea: Nitrogen and phosphorus in eutrophic waters can be absorbed by mussels and converted into mussel meal.
- Forestry and agriculture: Sawdust, spent sulfite liquor, and straw can be used as substrates for growing mycoprotein through fermentation.
- Food industry: Homogeneous, predictable side streams such as brewers’ spent grain, distillers’ grains, okara, vegetable trimmings, and wheat bran can be used to raise insects or produce mycoprotein through solid-state fermentation.
- Food waste: Mixed food waste is biologically well suited for insect production, but its use is currently restricted by regulations.