Fishmeal is made by either cooking, pressing, drying and grinding of fish or fish waste to which no other matter has been added. It is a solid product from which most of the water is removed and some or all of the oil is removed. Four or five tonnes of fish are needed to manufacture one tonne of dry fishmeal.

There are several ways of making fishmeal from raw fish; the simplest way is to let the fish dry out in the sun. This method is still used in some parts of the world where processing plants are not available, nevertheless the end product is poor in comparison with ones made by modern methods.