Where Does Fish Oil Come From?

Fish oil comes from many different species of fish including tuna, salmon, anchovy, and sardines. Most fish oils produced for human consumption is a combination of different fish species, which is better than just one source since it gives the body the best oils from each species. There is a special process for extracting the oils from the fish.

Processing of Fish Oil

Fish oil is produced in special processing plants around the world and while every plant operates a bit differently, there are similarities in how the fish oil is collected. In order to get the fish oil, the processing plant has to separate three major components of the fish including the water, fats, and fat free dry solids.

The various species of fish come to the plant whole and raw at which time they are cut into several pieces placed in containers and steam cooked. After cooking is when the process of separating the fats, oils, and dry solids is accomplished via a pressing process. The oil and water from the fish is specially processed to separate the two.

After the oil is separated fully from the water, it has to go through another process in order to remove any impurities, which is accomplished by very hot water. The final process is the adding of some kind of antioxidant and then the oil that is ready to be used is placed in special storage units that are stainless steel since plastic would not keep the fish oil as fresh.

The processing plant at this time either begins making the fish oil softgels if they are equipped to do so, or the oil containers are shipped to manufacturing plants that do make the softgels.