Inside the Fish Oil Supply Chain

In this Nutritional Outlook video interview, Harry Rice, PhD, vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs at the Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3s (GOED) and NO editorial advisory board member, walks through two major issues currently shaping the omega-3 ingredient landscape: supply chain volatility and a pending cardiovascular health claim.

On supply, Rice explains that fish oil availability hinges heavily on the Peruvian anchovy fishery, which supplies more than 60% of the oil used in dietary supplements. The fishery's two annual seasons are governed by quotas tied to ocean conditions, and El Niño-driven disruptions have repeatedly thrown off projections, including a full cancellation of the larger fishing season in 2023. In 2026, an early season start driven by anticipated El Niño conditions led to concerns about juvenile anchovy populations, triggering a temporary fishing pause. Rice notes that microbial omega-3 oils, such as those derived from Schizochytrium, offer an alternative source but face their own regulatory hurdles.

To address inconsistent national standards, GOED proposed a Codex Alimentarius standard for microbial omega-3 oils in 2024, which was accepted for development and discussed further at a 2026 meeting, with adoption anticipated as early as 2028.

On the clinical side, Rice describes an ongoing GOED-supported, independently overseen consensus panel evaluating EPA and DHA's role in reducing cardiovascular risk in the general population. The seven-member panel includes five omega-3 researchers alongside a cardiologist and a cardiovascular dietitian, intended to ensure any resulting recommendation is both scientifically rigorous and clinically practical. The panel's systematic review has been submitted for publication, with results expected to be unveiled at the American Society for Nutrition's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. this July. Rice notes the timing is significant, since a planned U.S. and Canadian dietary reference intake review for omega-3s has been paused, leaving a gap in current guidance that this new recommendation could help fill.

A transcript of their conversation can be found below.

Nicholas Saraceno: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another edition of Nutritional Outlook video coverage. I am Nico Saraceno, senior editor of Nutritional Outlook magazine, and today I'm joined by a very special guest. His name is Harry Rice. He is not only a member of our editorial advisory board, but he's also the vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs with GOED, which is the global organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3s. Harry, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today and to hop on. I really do appreciate it.

Harry Rice: Oh, thank you for having me.

Saraceno: Absolutely. We have a lot to dive into, so let's just get to it. My first question is around supply chain dynamics. As you know, of course, fish oil supply chain dynamics have been under pressure from a range of different directions, including sustainability concerns, sourcing concentration, climate variability affecting fish stocks.

On behalf of the GOED, what is your current read when it comes to supply chain resilience, and what do you think finished product manufacturers should be paying attention to as it stands in this specific climate?

Rice: Let me talk briefly about the current climate for fish oil and the supply chain. So for Omega-3, the biggest challenge for the supply chain is always the availability of fish oil supply and the importance of the Peruvian anchovy fishery. Many of your listeners may know it’s the largest fishery in the world. It supplies more than 60% of the oils that go into dietary supplements. The fishery has two different seasons, and the quota is determined by a scientific body.

I won't get into the specifics here, because quite frankly, it confuses me quite a bit, so it's been up and down. The seasons have been up and down over the years, because of El Niños. In 2023, there was a huge disruption to the supply chain because the first fishing season, which is the larger of the 2 fishing seasons, was cancelled completely. It really took the industry by surprise, , which in and of itself was a little bit of a surprise because the supply chain goes up and down. These El Niños happen, unfortunately.

We're experiencing something similar this year in 2026. We've had a bunch of mini bands that have been going on. The fishing season started early because of an anticipated El Nino. Because the fishing season started early, there were a large number of juveniles. When there are a large number of juveniles, there's concern that those juveniles will be taken out of circulation or in the supply. They stop the fishing. There is a current mini band going on and it goes on until tomorrow. It's anticipated, at least the forecast going out after that, looks good for at least 2 weeks, and then the waters are supposed to warm up again, and then it's kind of an unknown.

We don't know how much longer the fishing season is going to continue. but as far as that's concerned, there are other Omega-3 sources. For instance, microalgal oils from Schizochytrium is one of the most popular microbial omega-3 oils. Sorry, let me back up just a little bit. We use the term at GOED as microbial omega-3 oils. This would include, algal oils, microalgal oils. One of the oldest that's been on the market is oil from Schizochytrium.

This alternative source is not a home run, let's put it that way. There are issues that you need to address, regulatory issues. A perfect example of a regulatory issue is in 2020, when the Thai FDA came out with a draft regulation for oils and fats. This included algal oils high in DHA. At the time, none of our members could meet the standard. e communicated with the Thai FDA. They made some adjustments to the regulation before they finalized it. Still, it's nearly impossible to meet. As result of this, we decided to see if we could set a universal standard that could guide regulatory authorities worldwide.

We submitted a Codex proposal for microbial omega-3 oils. We presented this at a meeting in 2024 to the Codex Committee on Fats and Oils. It was accepted. The work was started immediately. There was a discussion at the 2026 meeting.

Back up. just one little bit. This meeting takes place every other year, and so 2024 was the proposal for new work. It was accepted. Twenty twenty-six was the first discussion, and it was decided that we would continue the work after making a lot of progress during that meeting. We're hoping that the standard is ultimately adopted in 2028 or 2030. This is a long-term plan. What this does is it gives guidance to regulatory authorities. If they set a standard that is more stringent, which they're allowed to do, then you can push back a little bit and say this can be construed as a barrier to free trade. You really should be aligned with the Codex standard. It takes a lot of foresight to think about this, but we're hoping that this helps with what we're considering to be an alternative source for fish oil. Sorry for being so long-winded, but there was a lot to explain there.

Saraceno: No, I appreciate you breaking that down. It's hard to add brevity to something with such magnitude. You mentioned Codex as well, but there's also obviously some research, in terms of omega-3s and the correlation between helping to lower or reduce cardiovascular risk in the general population. I know GOED has been doing consensus panel work on that as well. From what you could share, Harry, are you able to perhaps describe a bit how that process works? Who was involved in that process? What kind of evidence was reviewed by the panel, and kind of just like what came out of that? What are you able to share from that?

Rice: Let me let me share a little bit of high-level information here. GOED is supporting the panel work, but we are hands off as much as possible other than overseeing it, but we hired a third party to oversee it. It's a 7-member panel, there are 5 scientific experts, well-known scientists in the omega-3 field. There's also a cardiologist and a cardiovascular dietician. We wanted the healthcare practitioner perspective as well. We wanted to make certain that whatever the scientists came up with for the recommendation, that it was actually feasible and could be implemented by, say, recommendations from a cardiologist or a dietician.

This work's been going on for a little over a year. There was a lot of discussion about what kind of evidence to look at. They looked at observational data, and they looked at interventional data. I'm not going to tell you exactly where they netted out on that, but there is a rigorous systematic review that is being used to support the recommendation for EPA and DHA, and that recommendation is going to be disclosed at the American Society for Nutrition's annual meeting, which takes place in July in Washington, DC.

That's sort of the reveal date. The systematic review has been submitted for publication. Obviously we can't necessarily time it, but we're hoping that the 2 coincide pretty much together. That's pretty exciting. What's really relevant right now is that we had anticipated that a dietary reference intake review for the macronutrients in the United States and Canada would be commencing at the end of last year. That work is on hold. I guess that's the best way of putting it. It's on hold right now. this recommendation is going to be very important because there really hasn't been a lot of solid guidance in recent years on omega-3s.