Fish oil, as a marine biological product rich in ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (including EPA and DHA), has attracted much attention. The following is its production process.
The first is raw material preparation, usually large marine fish such as sardines and salmon. After the fish is transported back from the fishing ground, a series of pretreatments are carried out in a low-temperature environment, including cleaning impurities, descaling, and deboning, etc., to prevent the fish meat from oxidizing and deteriorating. At the same time, the raw materials are strictly inspected to ensure freshness and quality.
Then the extraction process is carried out. Common extraction methods include pressing and solvent extraction. The pressing method can retain more nutrients, but the yield is relatively low; the solvent extraction method can obtain higher purity fish oil, but it requires subsequent desolventization. During the extraction process, factors such as temperature, pressure, and solvent dosage will be strictly controlled to improve extraction efficiency and product quality.
The extracted fish oil must be purified and separated. Common methods include distillation, sedimentation, filtration, etc. These steps remove impurities and unnecessary ingredients, thereby improving the quality and stability of fish oil to meet the needs of different products, such as fish oil used in health products that require higher purity.
The next step is concentration and refining, where the extract is concentrated to the required concentration by evaporation and other methods, and the fish oil can be further refined by decolorization, deodorization, deacidification and other means.
The last step is product packaging, where the purified fish oil is packaged into different forms such as liquid, soft capsules, and hard capsules according to specifications and uses. The packaging material should be appropriate to ensure the freshness and stability of the fish oil during transportation and storage.
