A Friendlier Farmed Salmon?

I consume salmon about two or three times a month. Here in southern New England, we don't have too many wild salmon options, and what we do have at $25.00+/pound can be cost prohibitive even for me. As for farmed salmon, a 2004 study found that it contains higher levels of toxic carcinogens like PCB and dioxins than wild salmon. Farmed salmon has also been criticized for being raised in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions that are harmful to the environment and the fish. As for sustainability, the 2007 San Francisco Gate article titled Domestic farmed fish go under the microscope sources the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch Program calculation that it takes between 2-10 pounds of food to yield 1.5 pounds of salmon.

The reality is that all over the world people want salmon, and wild salmon alone can't supply the demand. There are, however, a few independent farms that claim to engage in healthier, more humane, and more sustainable practices.

Last Saturday while perusing the meats at the local butcher shop, I discovered Loch Duart salmon. Loch Duart salmon is salmon farmed in the waters off the Scotland coast. According to the Loch Duart fact sheet from their U.S. distributor Cleanfish, their salmon contain no hormones or growth promoters, grow in an environment that is 98.5% water to 1.5% fish, and are fed a diet taken from sustainable sources and contain no GMOs.

According to Nick Joy, managing director and one of three owner-managers, Loch Duart not only tests toxin levels among the fish stocks that go into the fish meal but also the meal itself and later the salmon. The result, he says, is that "I can confidently say you can eat our salmon every main meal of every day of every week" without any health issues. (For an alternative consumption recommendation see the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Smart Fish Calculator which they claim is based on EPA guidelines.)

So of course I decided to try it. Not bad. Definitely a cleaner and lighter taste than the salmon from the grocery store. At $15.00/lb. would I buy it again over the $5.00-$8.00/lb. salmon I can get at the supermarket? Probably.

After doing more research on the company, the consensus across multiple online sources seems to be that while it is still farmed salmon and it hasn't clearly solved the sustainability issue, the company is making a good faith effort to be responsible to the environment; to raise as high quality fish as possible; and to continue to work towards solving the sustainability problem. And to me the difference in taste was noticeable enough.