Gurnard is an abundant fish in the Northeast Atlantic but is mostly caught as due the activity of trawl fishery as a by-catch and discarded most of the time. However, this fish has a very interesting nutritional composition, especially regarding its lipid composition. Thus, the objective of this work was to characterize the gurnard oil recovered from the production of protein hydrolysates, from heads (GH) and bones and skins (GSB), of gurnard caught off in different seasons. The samples of gunard oil were analyzed by GCFID to evaluate the fatty acid profile. The saturated fatty acids (SFA) were around 29% of the total fatty acids for both GH and GSB and constant during the year. Concerning the monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) a slight decrease was registered from summor (43-44%) to winter (39-40%) in both matrices. The polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) were between 25% to 31 % and increased proportionally from summer to winter. The high level of PUFA present in the oil were mainly from w3 family corresponding to 24.5% in GH and 25. 7% in GSB. Among these w3 PUFA a high percentage of EPA (20:5 w3) and DHA (22:6 w3) was recorded. The DHA content was always higher than 10% of the total fatty acids and increased from summer to spring reaching a maximum of 13% in both oils. Meanwhile, it was in autumn that GH and GSB oils attained the highest level of EPA (around 9%). As a conclusion, no relevant differences were observed between both oils. Regarding the seasonal variation, it seems that the period between autumn and spring was the most adequate to obtain gurnard oil richer in w3 PUFA, particularly EPA and DHA. This data emphasizes the importance of the zero waste in blue circular economy

50th WEFTA Conference, Rotterdam (Netherlands), 17th-21st October 2022

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