In 2021, over 100 scientists from 25 institutions published the most comprehensive assessment of aquatic foods ever conducted. Led by Stanford University's Center for Ocean Solutions, Stockholm Resilience Centre, and EAT, the Blue Food Assessment produced eight peer-reviewed papers in Nature journals and fundamentally changed how the world thinks about the role of fish, shellfish, seaweed, and aquatic plants in human nutrition and planetary health.

The findings were transformative. And four years later, the urgency has only grown.

As a professor who has dedicated her career to seafood science and sustainability, and as the Scientific Communication Coordinator for the RETHINK BLUE COST Action - a pan-European initiative to reimagine blue food systems - I want to present the complete case for why "blue foods" represent the most underleveraged opportunity in global food security.

What Are Blue Foods?

"Blue foods" is a term that emerged from the Stanford-led assessment to describe all food derived from aquatic environments: fish, shellfish, crustaceans, mollusks, seaweed, algae, and aquatic plants. The term was deliberately chosen to parallel "green foods" from terrestrial agriculture and to elevate aquatic foods from a footnote in food policy to a central pillar of nutrition strategy.

The scope is enormous:

  • 3.3 billion people get at least 20% of their animal protein from blue foods (FAO, 2024)
  • Blue food sectors employ over 800 million people worldwide
  • More than 2,500 species of aquatic animals and plants are harvested or farmed for food
  • Aquaculture surpassed wild capture for the first time in 2022, producing 94.4 million tonnes

Blue Foods Are Not Just Fish

The blue food category includes seaweed (farmed production: 36 million tonnes), freshwater fish (the primary animal protein in much of Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia), shellfish (filter feeders that actually clean the water they grow in), and aquatic plants like duckweed and water spinach that contain 25-60% protein by dry weight. Reducing "blue food" to "salmon and tuna" misses 90% of the picture.

The Nutrition Case: What No Other Food Group Can Match

The Blue Food Assessment's nutrition findings, published in Nature (Gephart et al., 2023), demonstrated something that surprised even the researchers: blue foods can address micronutrient deficiencies that no amount of grain, meat, or vegetables can solve as efficiently.

The Numbers

  • 93 countries have populations exposed to nutrient deficiencies despite having blue foods available locally - a gap of access, not availability
  • Increasing access to affordable blue foods could prevent 166 million micronutrient deficiencies worldwide
  • Small fish eaten whole (like anchovies, sardines) provide calcium, iron, zinc, vitamin A, and omega-3 in a single food - a nutrient density unmatched by any single terrestrial food
  • Blue foods provide the only significant dietary source of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA), which are essential for brain development, cardiovascular health, and immune function
"Access to more affordable blue foods could prevent 166 million micronutrient deficiencies worldwide. No other single intervention in the food system comes close to that potential impact." — Stanford Blue Food Assessment

Why This Matters for the Developing World

In much of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the primary animal protein source is not beef or chicken - it is freshwater fish. These are not the salmon and tuna that dominate headlines in wealthy nations. They are tilapia, catfish, carp, and small indigenous species that cost a fraction of meat and are culturally embedded in local food systems.

When the World Food Programme warns that 318 million people face crisis hunger in 2026, the solution is not exclusively about growing more wheat or rice. It is about making blue foods - already available in rivers, lakes, and coastal waters across the developing world - more accessible, more affordable, and better integrated into nutrition policy.

The Climate Case: 6x Less Carbon Than Beef

The environmental argument for blue foods is perhaps even more compelling than the nutritional one.

Carbon Footprint

According to data compiled by Oceana and Our World in Data:

  • Wild-caught seafood produces 6x less carbon than beef
  • Wild seafood produces 5x less carbon than lamb
  • Wild seafood produces 2x less carbon than cheese
  • Small pelagic fish (sardines, anchovies, mackerel) have the lowest carbon footprint of any animal protein
  • One hamburger has roughly the same carbon footprint as 4 kilograms of wild sardines

The Land Use Paradox

Agriculture occupies approximately half of the world's habitable land. Nearly 80% of that farmland is devoted to livestock (pasture + feed crops). Blue foods use little or no land. Farmed mussels, seaweed, and ocean-based aquaculture operate on surfaces that cannot grow crops. This is not competing with agriculture - it is complementing it on unused planetary surface.

The Seaweed and Shellfish Superstars

Among blue foods, certain categories stand out as environmental champions:

  • Farmed seaweed: Requires no feed, no freshwater, no fertilizer, no land. Absorbs CO2 and nitrogen from the water. Global production: 36 million tonnes and growing
  • Farmed mussels and oysters: Filter feeders that clean the water they grow in. Require no feed inputs. Among the lowest environmental footprint of any food production system on Earth
  • Small pelagic fish: Low trophic level, abundant, fast-reproducing. Sardines, anchovies, and herring are the nutritional and environmental champions of the animal protein world
"Farmed shellfish may be the most environmentally positive form of food production on Earth. Filter-feeding mussels and oysters clean the water, require no feed, sequester carbon in their shells, and provide dense nutrition. It is difficult to imagine a more elegant food system." — Gephart et al., Nature, 2023

The Climate Policy Gap

Despite this evidence, blue foods remain largely absent from climate policy. Stanford's 2024 guidelines for integrating blue foods into national climate strategies revealed a striking disconnect:

  • Most countries' Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement focus exclusively on terrestrial agriculture
  • Blue foods are mentioned in fewer than 15% of national food security strategies
  • Aquaculture receives less than 2% of agricultural research funding globally, despite producing over half of all aquatic animal food

This is not an oversight. It is a systemic blind spot. And it is one that the RETHINK BLUE COST Action, which I coordinate communications for across Europe, is specifically working to address.

The Investment Signal

The private sector is moving faster than policy:

  • Blue economy venture capital has grown 7x in 8 years
  • Investment projected to reach $3 billion in 2025
  • Key areas: sustainable aquaculture, alternative feeds, traceability technology, seaweed farming, cellular aquaculture

When venture capital flows at this rate into a sector that was barely on the radar a decade ago, it signals a structural shift. The blue food revolution is not theoretical. It is being funded.

What Needs to Happen: A Five-Point Agenda

Based on the Blue Food Assessment findings and my own research in this field, here is what I believe must happen to realize the potential of blue foods:

  1. Integrate blue foods into national nutrition policies. The fact that 93 countries have populations with nutrient deficiencies despite local blue food availability is a policy failure, not a production failure. Governments must treat blue foods as part of the nutrition solution, not a separate fisheries issue.
  2. Invest in sustainable aquaculture research. Aquaculture produces over 50% of aquatic animal food but receives less than 2% of agricultural R&D funding. This ratio is indefensible. Technologies like recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS), alternative feeds, and AI-driven monitoring need public research investment at scale.
  3. Include blue foods in climate strategies. Every country should integrate aquatic foods into their NDCs under the Paris Agreement. The carbon math is clear: shifting even 10% of animal protein consumption from beef to small pelagic fish would have a measurable impact on global emissions.
  4. Scale seaweed and shellfish farming. These are the lowest-impact, highest-benefit forms of food production available. Coastal communities worldwide have the conditions for mussel, oyster, and seaweed farming. What they lack is investment, training, and market access.
  5. Improve traceability and consumer trust. Blue foods suffer from a trust deficit driven by concerns about overfishing, pollution, and fraud. Technologies like blockchain traceability, spectroscopic authentication, and AI-driven quality assessment - the kinds of tools my lab works on - can rebuild that trust with verifiable data.
"We talk endlessly about green food systems. It is time to talk about blue. The ocean covers 71% of the planet's surface and produces food with a fraction of the environmental impact of land-based agriculture. The question is not whether we can afford to invest in blue foods. The question is whether we can afford not to."

The Personal Dimension

I write this not only as a scientist but as someone who grew up on the shores of Turkey, eating fish that my family bought from local fishermen at the harbor. Blue foods are not an abstract policy concept to me. They are the hamsi my mother fried in cornmeal on winter evenings. They are the midye dolma I ate from street vendors as a student. They are the culture, the economy, and the nutrition of coastal communities worldwide.

When I work on technologies to assess fish freshness, or develop functional fish products for elderly patients, or coordinate science communication for the RETHINK BLUE COST Action, I am working on pieces of the same puzzle: how to make blue foods safer, more accessible, more sustainable, and more valued.

The Blue Food Assessment gave us the science. The WFP gave us the urgency. The investment community is giving us the capital. What remains is the political will and the public awareness to put blue foods at the center of the global food conversation.

That conversation starts with each of us choosing to eat more blue food, asking where it comes from, and demanding that our governments treat the ocean not as a resource to exploit, but as a food system to sustain.

References

  • Gephart, J.A. et al. (2023). "Four ways blue foods can help achieve food system ambitions across nations." Nature, 616, 104-112.
  • Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions (2025). "Blue Food Futures Program." Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.
  • FAO (2024). The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. Rome.
  • Oceana (2025). "Wild seafood has a lower carbon footprint than red meat, cheese, and chicken."
  • Our World in Data (2025). "Food choice vs eating local: environmental impact of foods."
  • World Food Programme (2026). Global Food Crisis Report: 318 million face crisis hunger.
  • World Economic Forum (2026). "Blue Davos: Why 2026 is the Year of Water."
  • Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions (2024). "Integrating blue foods into national climate strategies." NDC Guidelines.
  • EU Knowledge for Policy (2025). "Building Blue Food Futures for People and the Planet." Blue Food Assessment Report.
  • MDPI Resources (2025). "Aquatic Plants for Blue Protein Innovation: Bridging Nutrition, Sustainability, and Food Security." 14(12), 192.
Prof. Dr. Zayde Ayvaz

Prof. Dr. Zayde Ayvaz

Professor of Fisheries Industry Engineering at ÇOMÜ. Scientific Communication Coordinator for RETHINK BLUE COST Action (CA22118). Co-author of "Economic, Innovation and Finance Perspectives of Sustainable Blue Economy" in the Springer Handbook of Sustainable Blue Economy (2025).