Centre for Feed Innovation: Biodiversity Grantee Spotlight (2026)

As a result of a consulting project in which an anonymous donor hired Giving Green to research promising strategies and funding opportunities to reduce biodiversity loss, Giving Green has recommended a donation to the Centre for Feed Innovation (CFI) to accelerate the development of fish meal and fish oil (FMFO) alternatives.
CFI is a U.K.-based nonprofit organization promoting innovation in sustainable, scalable, and safe feed ingredients. Within our strategy for reducing biodiversity loss, CFI’s work falls within our sub-strategy of developing technical alternatives to fish meal and fish oil (FMFO). Please see Giving Green’s strategy report for more information about our assessment of novel feeds as a solution to biodiversity loss.
Last updated: February 2026
What Is the Centre for Feed Innovation?
Founded in 2024, CFI is a nonprofit based in the U.K. with a charitable status in the U.S. through a fiscal sponsorship. CFI aims to accelerate the development and uptake of novel animal feed ingredients that can replace conventional ingredients like FMFO. CFI produces research to inform investment and procurement decisions in the novel feed and aquaculture sectors, raises awareness of the potential of novel feeds among industry and government representatives, and provides expert advice to businesses and investors.
What Is Being Funded, and How Could It Help Address Biodiversity Loss?
We recommended that the donor make an unrestricted donation to CFI to support the organization's growth. CFI plans to use new funding to maintain its current level of support and influence, start new research on circular feed ingredients, and expand its communications and media outreach.
Based on our strategy report on reducing biodiversity loss, we think that advancing alternatives to fish meal and fish oil is an important lever to improve marine biodiversity, as it can help reduce overfishing. Fish meal and fish oil production accounts for 45-50 percent of all fish caught worldwide (in number of individual fish), or about 13 percent by weight of the total catch. This affects the abundance of small fish species (forage fishes) and, in turn, the fish, mammals, and birds that depend on them.
Why Do We Think the Centre for Feed Innovation Will Use This Funding Well?
We think that philanthropy can play an important role in shifting the aquaculture sector away from FMFO toward novel fish feed, such as algae and single-cell proteins. Important actions to reduce barriers to the growth of novel feeds include achieving economies of scale, reducing input costs, and addressing up-front capital costs. We think these barriers can be partially overcome by catalyzing more investment, advancing research, and securing government support for a feed transition. Patient philanthropic capital plays an important role in derisking new technologies because it lacks a profit motive.
While CFI is a new and small nonprofit, we believe it has punched above its weight as a thought leader in the aquaculture feed sector despite operating on a small budget. While CFI’s impact is difficult to measure because investment decisions are often private and take place long after engagements, we see promising signs of influence. CFI’s research highlights from 2025 include the publication of a State of the Industry Report on algal oil as an alternative to fish oil and a report on the potential of converting food waste into animal feed, in partnership with the nonprofit ReFED.
We think CFI could use additional funding to expand its research and outreach to investors, governments, and industry. We are impressed by CFI’s ability to quickly position itself as a thought leader in the novel feed sector and think that its work could help reduce overfishing.
Giving Green believes that additional biodiversity donations are likely to be most impactful when directed to our Top Biodiversity Nonprofits. For several reasons, we may choose to advise donations to other organizations for work that we believe is at least as impactful as grants to our top recommendations. We are highlighting this grant to offer transparency to donors to our Top Biodiversity Nonprofits, as well as to provide a resource for donors who are particularly interested in this impact strategy. This is a nonpartisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.
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