From Trash Fish to Fishmeal Production in Thailand:
History and Political Economy Analysis
Trash fish or Pla Ped – Pla Kai (in Thai) was once an undesirable fish among the fishermen. Having a low value, causing additional intensive labor to sort, their values were just for feeding the backyard’s ducks and chickens on a small scale in households. However, the mechanization of the fishing industry and the expansion of the livestock sector (and followed by the aquaculture) have changed the value of trash fish. It becomes the main raw material for fishmeal production, a significant ingredient for feeding livestock.
From being unwanted bycatch, trash fish evolved into a commodity that underpinned significant segments of the Thai economy throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The fishmeal industry not only generated income for fishers but also created employment in coastal processing plants, linking small-scale fisheries to industrial and export-oriented production systems. Fishmeal made from Thailand’s trash fish became one of the country’s key export products, contributing not only to local livelihoods but also to the broader industrialization of Thailand’s agricultural and food sectors.
This article traces the historical trajectory of Thailand’s fishmeal industry, examining how technological change, economic policy, and shifting market demands—both domestic and international—enabled its expansion. It also reflects on the transformation of trash fish from an unwanted byproduct of trawling to a crucial engine of national economic growth. By doing so, the article engages with the broader tension between economic optimization and ecological sustainability that has long defined Thailand’s fisheries development.
Defining Trash Fish
Definitions of “trash fish” vary across Southeast Asia. But in Thailand, the term is generally understood as the fish that are unsuitable for direct human consumption. Trash fish are commonly known as pla ped (fish for ducks) and pla kai (fish for chickens), reflecting how farmers traditionally fed them to livestock.
Meanwhile, the Department of Fisheries (DOF) of Thailand distinguishes between two types: so-called “real” trash fish—small, low-value species throughout their life cycle—and juvenile economic species caught prematurely. Despite being biologically distinct, both types of trash fish end up in the same place: ground into fishmeal or used for fertilizers and bait (DOF, 1985).
Gradually, trash fish has become the resources that significantly contribute to the country’s economic growth despite being named ‘trash’ fish. This redefinition of waste into resource mirrors the broader economic logic of Thailand’s development era. What was once seen as valueless became essential once it could fuel industrial expansion. But this reliance on trash fish also sowed the seeds of future ecological strain. The following sections will dive into the development of Thailand’s fishmeal industry, the utilization of trash fish, and how it has contributed to growth and ecological challenges.
The use of trash fish
before industrialization
Thailand’s use of small fish for feed predates industrialization. In 1937, Field Marshal Pibunsongkram encouraged households to raise chickens and ducks to address food shortages during wartime, and farmers used trash fish to feed the poultry – hence the local name pla ped and pla kai (Chowchankit, 1985).
The use of trash fish started to expand in the poultry industry as part of the government’s policy in 1947, and so did the domestic demand for protein-rich feed. In the early days of production, the farmers only used simple methods to reduce trash fish to fishmeal: sun-drying, boiling, and grinding into powder. However, this method did not guarantee the quality of fishmeal, as it often spoiled and caused a strong odor (Satayarak, 1984).
There were attempts to improve production to enhance the overall quality of fishmeal (which is an assumption from the author due to limited and fragmented records). In 1952, the FAO sent the machine to the Mattaphon District, Chumpon Province, to improve production quality. The government also purchased another machine from Denmark. However, the production did not go well, as there was a mismatch between the southern Thailand weather conditions and the lipid content in the tropical fish species.
Figure 2: Mattaphon Island (Ko Mattaphon), Chumpon Province
Additionally, raw materials – trash fish – were only supplied by the fisherfolk, who could not provide a sufficient amount to scale up the production to an industrialized scale, which hampered the ventures. Overall, the experiment in the Mataphon district failed. The machines were sold to the fishmeal factory. Meanwhile, there were factories in Ranong that saw the market opportunities in fishmeal production. These factories proceeded to another level, operating on the sea as they could keep the freshness of the fish and the availability of the resources. Even so, these operations did not last long due to the high cost of operation at sea (Chowchankit, 1985).
It wasn’t until the late 1960s, with the arrival of industrial trawlers, that fishmeal production stabilized. Bycatch, once dismissed as a nuisance, became the raw material that sustained a new industry.
Trawler Introduction to Thailand
The introduction of trawlers in the early 1960s to Thailand is one of the important enablers that allows the fishmeal industry to thrive. With the non-selective gear, trawlers dramatically increased the fisheries production. The records showed that trash fish landings were 325,000 metric tons, which was 22 percent of total fish production in 1970. A decade later, trash fish landings rose to 824,000 metric tons, or 46% of total fish production (Floyd, 1985). Moreover, the number of registered trawlers dramatically increased from 3,480 to 12,683 between 1970 and 1980.
Due to the large number of landings, trash fish were increasingly diverted into fishmeal factories, which were also linked to the gradual thriving livestock sectors in the country. Initially, the poultry industry drove demand, later joined by shrimp aquaculture during the 1980s, which depended on high-quality fishmeal as a feed input (Office of Agricultural Economics, 2012). This is actually the turning point for the use of trash fish in Thailand. From just unwanted bycatch, trash fish has turned into an economic backbone since the 1970s.
Crisis and Restructuring: EEZs, IUU Fishing,
and Market Shifts
As an industry dependent on finite marine resources and the health of the sea, Thailand’s fisheries and fishmeal sector has always been structurally fragile. By the late 1970s, the Gulf of Thailand had become the most intensively exploited sea in Asia, showing clear signs of overfishing and ecological stress.
The subsequent establishment of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) by neighboring countries in 1977 further exposed this vulnerability. Thailand suddenly lost access to more than 300,000 square miles of fishing grounds (Office of Agricultural Economics, 2012). This external shock revealed the extent to which the industry’s growth had relied on unsustainable extraction and expanding into foreign waters.
The challenges deepened in 2015 when the EU issued Thailand a yellow card for insufficient action against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The Thai government responded with reforms: stricter vessel inspections, license revocations, fleet reductions, and a vessel buyback scheme (The Nation, 2022). While these measures aimed to align with international standards, they disrupted seafood supply chains.
Before the reforms, Thailand produced 500,000 tons of fishmeal annually (valued at 20,000 million THB), but output fell to 270,000 tons by 2017 (Prachachat Business, 2017). Of the 74 remaining factories, 28 operated at a loss, with 5-10 facing imminent closure. Reduced supply of raw fish, both trash fish and processing by-products, drove up operational costs, eroding Thailand’s competitiveness. By 2017, Vietnam had overtaken Thailand as China’s second-largest fishmeal supplier (Prachachat Business, 2017).
What emerged was not merely a production challenge, but a systemic fragility. An industry whose success was built on the depletion of a shared and declining resource base, increasingly constrained by ecological limits and the changing international governance of the seas.
Transition Toward Sustainability?
In the early 2000s, Thailand produced 390,000-420,000 tons of fishmeal per year, using about 1.5 million tons of raw fish, of which 724,777 tons were trash fish (Office of Agricultural Economics, 2012). Historically, 67% of fishmeal production in 1991 came from trash fish, but by 2021, this figure dropped to 30.97% (Department of Fisheries, 2022).
The decline reflects both regulatory pressure and a shift toward using by-products from seafood processing plants - surimi, frozen seafood, and tuna canneries - as alternative sources of protein (Leadbitter, 2019). Corporate initiatives reinforced this trend: CP Foods eliminated the use of trash-fish-based fishmeal, while Thai Union began replacing fishmeal with microbial and insect-based proteins and substituting fish oil with algal oil (Loomis, 2020).
Despite these reforms, trawler data from 2021 indicate that ecological strain persists: 292,300 tons of trash fish were caught, surpassing 262,300 tons of commercial species, with 190,000 tons identified as juvenile commercial fish (Department of Fisheries, 2022). These figures highlight that structural dependence on extraction remains even as the industry attempts to rebrand itself as sustainable.
Conclusion
The history of Thailand’s fishmeal industry mirrors the country’s broader development paradox: growth achieved through extraction. Emerging from the mechanization of fisheries and the rise of livestock and aquaculture, fishmeal symbolized the transformation of marine waste into economic capital. Yet, this success carried ecological and social costs; overfishing and declining biodiversity.
As export-led growth outpaced ecological well-being, Thailand’s fishmeal sector became emblematic of industrial capitalism’s logic of “maximum use.” Later crises, such as the EEZ restrictions, IUU sanctions, and resource depletion, forced the industry to adapt. The shift toward processing by-products and corporate sustainability reflects both resource exhaustion and regulatory adaptation, not a fundamental transformation of the growth paradigm.
Ultimately, the fishmeal story reveals the trajectory of Thailand’s development itself: a pattern of modernization that converts abundance into scarcity, and waste into value, only to confront its ecological limits once again.
Figure 5: The diagram showing Thailand’s fishmeal market structure. Source: Author
Citations
Department of Fisheries. (2022, November 14). Clarification from the Department of Fisheries: Thailand’s fisheries control is strict, and marine fisheries resources are managed sustainably (กรมประมง…ชี้แจง ! การควบคุมการทำประมงของไทย มีกฎหมายเข้มงวด และมีการบริหารจัดการทรัพยากรประมงทะเลให้ยั่งยืนอย่างชัดเจน). https://www.am1386.com/home/12779
FAO & Asian Development Bank. (1983). The world market for fishmeal with particular attention to the Asian/Pacific region.
Floyd, J. M. (1985). The political economy of fisheries development in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand.
Leadbitter, D. (2019). Driving change in South East Asian trawl fisheries, fishmeal supply, and aquafeed.
Loomis, I. (2020, August 31). Wrestling with a ‘generational’ problem, Thai shrimp industry rates higher. Responsible Seafood Advocate. https://www.globalseafood.org/advocate/wrestling-with-a-generational-problem-thai-shrimp-industry-rates-higher/
Office of Agricultural Economics. (2012). A Study on the Economics of Fishmeal Production Market through Price Ceiling Mechanism.
Prachachat. (2017, June 14). Amnuay Eua-areemit pushes roadmap for fishmeal industry consolidation as a survival strategy [อำนวย เอื้ออารีมิตร ชูโรดแมปรวมกิจการทางรอดปลาป่น]. Prachachat Business.
Satayarak, K. (1984). A study on production problems and cost of production of fishmeal plant in the Central Part of Thailand [Master's Thesis]. Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
This article is written by Tawanrat Marit, a research assistant at Just Seafood.