Omega-3 Nutrition in Shrimp Diets: Profitability, Sustainability, and Market Value

This blog post features one of GSA’s Corporate Members, Veramaris. We thank Veramaris for their support of the work GSA does to advance responsible seafood practices.

Global farmed shrimp production was projected to reach six million metric tons in 2025, according to Rabobank. This volume represents the industry’s exponential growth of 500% over the last five decades. Shrimp remains one of aquaculture’s most important species, supporting food security, rural economies, and global protein supply.

Shrimp farming is hard. It is physically demanding, technically complex, and biologically unforgiving. Disease pressure, environmental stress, and narrow margins leave little room for error. New research shows that shrimp nutrition, specifically dietary levels of EPA & DHA, can strengthen shrimp health while delivering benefits that matter from feed to plate and for a food system under real strain.

EPA & DHA in a changing production landscape

Shrimp, like people, have a very limited ability to synthesize EPA & DHA on their own. These long-chain Omega-3 fatty acids are essential for everyday biological function but they must be supplied through the diet. In shrimp, EPA & DHA support key systems that underpin health and performance on the farm including nervous system function, cellular integrity, and critically, immune response.

For decades, fish oil has been the traditional source of EPA & DHA used in aquaculture feeds, and it was sufficient to meet the needs of a much smaller global industry. As aquaculture production expands, demand for EPA & DHA is increasing significantly, while the availability of fish oil from wild capture sources remains largely flat.

When access to essential nutrients becomes constrained or volatile, it introduces risk to feed formulation consistency, farm performance, and long-term supply reliability. Ensuring stable access to EPA & DHA is therefore not only a nutritional consideration, but a systems-level vulnerability for an industry that needs to perform reliably year-round.

Marine algae are the original source of EPA & DHA. By cultivating and harvesting these nutrients directly, algae-based Omega-3s help stabilize access to EPA & DHA as aquaculture continues to scale. That stability supports healthier animals, more predictable farming outcomes, and seafood that continues to deliver recognized nutritional value to people — while reducing reliance on finite wild fish resources.

With that foundation in place, the question becomes not whether EPA & DHA matter, but how improving access to them shows up in real-world farm performance — especially when shrimp are under pressure.

Why Omega-3 nutrition matters for shrimp health

Shrimp rely entirely on innate immunity. Without an adaptive immune system or antibodies, they depend on cellular defenses, primarily hemocytes and granulocytes, to respond to disease and stress.

To better understand how omega-3 nutrition affects shrimp health, tank trials were conducted with Pacific whiteleg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei). Three experimental diets were evaluated:

• A control diet with 0.4% EPA & DHA – a level commonly seen in commercial shrimp farming
• A diet with 1% EPA & DHA from blended sources (fish oil + algal oil)
• A diet with 1%EPA & DHA from algal oil only

Shrimp were stocked at 0.6 grams and reared for 56 days before facing disease and stress challenges, including Acute Hepatopancreatic Necrosis Disease (AHPND) and acute salinity stress.

Stronger immune response, better survival

AHPND remains one of the most damaging disease challenges in shrimp farming. In the trials, shrimp fed diets containing 1% EPA & DHA showed meaningfully lower cumulative mortality following AHPND challenge compared with shrimp fed the control diet.

Under acute salinity stress, shrimp receiving higher EPA & DHA also showed delayed mortality and improved survival dynamics. These responses indicate that animals fed a higher level of EPA+DHA are more robust and better equipped to withstand both biological and environmental stressors which can be devastating to farmers.

Immune profiling supports these outcomes. Shrimp fed higher EPA & DHA diets showed increases in total hemocyte counts and granulocyte populations. In species that rely entirely on innate immunity, more cellular “first responders” means more chance that shrimp will make it to harvest.

Efficiency that supports sustainability

Lower mortality changes the math. When more shrimp survive, fewer inputs are lost. Feed, energy, labor, and infrastructure work harder across each kilogram produced.

Anyone who has walked onto a farm after a loss knows the impact goes beyond numbers. Lost animals mean lost time, lost effort, and hard conversations at the end of a long day. Improving survival improves performance, but it also improves what it feels like to run a farm.

Life-cycle modeling using established feed-to-farm assessment tools showed that increasing dietary EPA & DHA reduced carbon footprint per unit of shrimp harvested under standard production conditions. Under disease-challenge scenarios, footprint reductions were even greater.

This is sustainability that shows up in daily operations.

Nutrition on your plate

This is where the story gets interesting. EPA & DHA are well known for supporting cardiovascular health, cognition, vision, and immune function in people. Shrimp is already valued as a lean, reliable protein. Increasing Omega-3 content strengthens its role without changing what people expect from it.

In the same trials, shrimp fed higher EPA & DHA diets showed increased Omega-3 deposition in tail muscle, moving from about 100 milligrams per 100 grams to roughly 180 milligrams per 100 grams. The shrimp didn’t change. They looked, cooked, and performed the same, while delivering more nutritional value on your plate.

Shrimp remains savory, familiar, and easy to prepare.

Market relevance over time

Consumers consistently report choosing seafood for health. According to the FMI Power of Seafood study, more than 90 percent of frequent and occasional seafood consumers believe seafood is good for them. Nutrition-forward production reinforces that belief without asking shoppers to rethink the category.

For buyers, the checklist is clear:

• healthier animals
• lower waste
• stronger nutritional profile
• consistent product performance

Those attributes tend to hold value over time.

Better nutrition pays off

Shrimp farmers are looking for practical ways to win on all fronts. Bumping dietary EPA & DHA levels up to 1% is an input investment that pays off for animal welfare, performance, nutritional value, and overall profitability all at once.

Providing shrimp with elevated levels of EPA & DHA supports essential functions at the cellular level especially immune response, providing aid where the animals need it most.

The outcomes are tangible. Improved survival, more efficient use of feed and energy, and more consistent harvests that strengthen farm economics while reducing waste and footprint per unit produced. The best part is the benefits carry through to the final product, increasing Omega-3 levels in shrimp that consumers choose for health.

At Veramaris, we see better nutrition as a system solution. A singular decision at the feed level that can improve animal health, production efficiency, and food quality—supporting a more resilient and reliable seafood supply for the future.

Thanks for being a member, Veramaris!