Analysts have called for the development of insect farming to meet an expected shortfall in fish food, providing an unintentional solution to the challenge of making bugs a viable for mass human consumption.

Fish farming, or aquaculture as it is otherwise known, is booming, but there’s a problem: the industry is exploding at such a rate that fish feed manufacturers cannot keep up.

With aquaculture now worth a whopping $17bn a year, demand for fish meal and oil is set to fall short from next year, with the gap widening every year following until by 2025 the industry is short by 16 million metric tons.

The solution, according to analysts, is the development of alternative food sources for the fish, and the answer looks set to be insects, algae and recycled waste.

However none of these solutions are ready yet: all need to be developed so they can be produced in higher quantities for lower costs, something that requires money and time.

“The future of fish feed is a blend of alternatives – no single source will dominate as fish meal has,” said Sara Olson, Lux Research analyst and lead author of a report on the issue.

“However, most alternatives to fish meal have unmet needs of cost, nutrition and scale. To take advantage of the coming shifts, companies should find opportunities to address these challenges for these alternative sources.”

Insect farming, along with algae, has been touted as a future food for humans as well as fish in the past, but production is currently only possible in small batches at high cost.

This could be resolved relatively simply with adequate financing, but given the mixed views about such food’s future for humans, few have been willing to put their money where their mouth is.

However, if the shortfall in fish food occurs as predicted, the industry will need to invest in insect and algae farming in order to survive.

Given necessity is the mother of invention, farming solutions for insects are likely to be developed much more quickly by the fish industry than the food industry.

Yet once developed, these insect farming processes could prompt an unintended growth in the number of bug-based food products available for humans.

Insects have long been touted as the future of food, and although to many the idea is deeply unpleasant, one in five meat eaters in the West have said they are up for trying them.

But the reason we have yet to see a flood of insect-based products in our supermarkets isn’t people’s squeamishness. It’s the cost of their production.

Some higher-end companies have started limited ranges, or in the case of British restaurant Wahaca, added them to menus as specials, but at present bugs simply cannot be produced affordably to the standards required.

If fish farmers do invest in insect farming, however, this could provide the missing link to the process. Of course food retailers may need to add additional procedures to get the bugs approved for human consumption, but the bulk of the R&D would have already been done, making the companies far more likely to take a punt on an insect-based snack.

Whether than will be in the form of complete fried bugs, or something blending into a protein bar to widen its appeal, however, remains to be seen.