Chilean Salmon

[liuzhou]

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The country is the world’s second-largest producer of the popular fish, and the biggest supplier to the US, but ...

 

Having salmon for dinner?  You might want to read this first.

 

‘Those who eat Chilean salmon cannot imagine how much human blood it carries with it’ | Chile | The Guardian

 

 

 

 

[Alex]

I also read this today. I promptly sent a message to our local fish and seafood wholesaler; they supply our major supermarkets:

 

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 I have a salmon-related question. I know about Verlasso salmon -- they do a good job of marketing their product -- but I was wondering about the other Chilean salmon you carry. Might you be able to tell me the farm or farms you source them from -- or if not, the name of the company you buy them from? Thank you.

 

Their marketing manager promptly replied: 

 

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Thank you for reaching out to us regarding the Chilean salmon we purchase.  We do purchase from various suppliers, but one that we use quite frequently is the parent company of Verlasso, called AquaChile.  They sell other Chilean salmon that isn't under their Verlasso brand.

 

Here is their website:  https://en.aquachile.com/quienes-somos/

 

I then replied with the URL from the Guardian, and asked: 

 

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Do you have any information about how the non-Verlasso fisheries are managed and what the working conditions are like?

 

That was about 1:30 this afternoon. No response yet. 

[Anchobrie]

I have a research project in Patagonia (in terrestrial agriculture-sheep-pumas) and I have sometimes seen something that if not slavery, was close to...

 

I am not surprise at all that salmon industry is similar. In fact, Norwegians are partially responsible of it when moving their farming operations to Chilean fjords.

[Alex]

9 hours ago, Alex said:

I also read this today. I promptly sent a message to our local fish and seafood wholesaler; they supply our major supermarkets:

 

 

Their marketing manager promptly replied: 

 

 

I then replied with the URL from the Guardian, and asked: 

 

 

That was about 1:30 this afternoon. No response yet. 

 

He replied this morning: 

 

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Thank you for sharing this information about the Chilean fisheries. We understand your concerns regarding working conditions and the broader issues surrounding salmon farming. While I don’t currently have detailed information on the specific companies and farms supplying our Chilean salmon, I will be looking into this further. I want to assure you that sourcing high-quality fish is a priority for us, and that includes not only the product itself but also the farming practices behind it.

 

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ocean conservation, and one of its key initiatives focuses on reducing antibiotic use in Chilean farmed salmon—the Chilean Salmon Antibiotic Reduction Program (CSARP). More information about this project can be found here: https://www.seafoodwatch.org/our-projects/farmed-salmon-in-chile. Several producers are actively participating, including Cooke and Camanchaca, both of whom are among our primary Chilean salmon suppliers.

 

That said, we recognize the importance of gaining a deeper understanding of the farming practices used by the companies we partner with. I will be reaching out to our buying team to gather additional information and ensure we are aligned with responsible and sustainable sourcing standards.

 

I sent an appreciative reply.

[weinoo]

Eat wild salmon from Alaska.  Why anyone buys farmed salmon is beyond me.

[rotuts]

$ .

[weinoo]

Well, it was kind of a rhetorical question.

 

But if people (here) are buying fancy steam ovens, fancy induction burners and ranges, multiple InstaPots and Cuisinart steam girls, Vitamixes, Bamixs, Japanese knives, etc. etc., then buy wild salmon.

 

I’ll add fancy indoor smokers to the above!

Edited 4 hours ago by weinoo (log)

[Alex]

A further reply: 

 

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Other than AquaChile, here are a couple of our other main supplier of our Chilean salmon. [I've simplified the URLs.]

 

Patagonia Sea Farms

http://www.patagoniaseafarms.com

 

BluGlacier

https://bluglacier.com/

 

[Dr. Teeth]

30 minutes ago, weinoo said:

Eat wild salmon from Alaska.  Why anyone buys farmed salmon is beyond me.

I read this comment out loud in my best Thurston Howell voice.   I found it tremendously improved the accessibility of the comment

[ElsieD]

25 minutes ago, weinoo said:

 

But if people (here) are buying fancy steam ovens, fancy induction burners and ranges, multiple InstaPots and Cuisinart steam girls, Vitamixes, Bamixs, Japanese knives, etc. etc., then buy wild salmon.

 

I’ll add fancy indoor smokers to the above!

 

May I respectfully suggest that not everyone finds any or all of these items affordable and therefore farmed salmon is all they can afford?  I'd add that in Canada even farmed salmon is not cheap.

[rotuts]

i would eat fresh fish frequently

 

if it was the sort that I get down @ CapeCod  while visiting @ WHPS.

 

Im very fortunate that I can afford it.

 

when visiting my father , years ago , Id get fresh wild salmon 5 days a week ,

 

frim Cook's Seafood in Menlo Park.   getting there in the morning , I could see

 

the owner looking over several fish , some still wiggling  ( all most )

 

its my favorite fish .   The seafood outlet in Falmouth had salmon , but it was not local .

 

so i got the freshest local and enjoyed every bite.

 

Id pay quite a bit more where live , there is a large fish market one town over 

 

but the fish there is not fresh.   

 

now , in thinking about irt

 

I might look into wild salmon on line :

 

your favorites sites are :

 

 

 

 

thank you .

[weinoo]

53 minutes ago, Dr. Teeth said:

I read this comment out loud in my best Thurston Howell voice.   I found it tremendously improved the accessibility of the comment

I’m pretty sure that Thurston Howell (the third, I believe) was eating nothing but wild fish on that isle.

 

43 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

 

May I respectfully suggest that not everyone finds any or all of these items affordable and therefore farmed salmon is all they can afford?  I'd add that in Canada even farmed salmon is not cheap.

 

You may, but it seems like everything I mention in my post is stuff that gets discussed here, so I don’t agree with that assessment.

 

32 minutes ago, rotuts said:

I might look into wild salmon on line :

 

your favorites sites are :

Great Alaska Seafood…https://www.great-alaska-seafood.com

[blue_dolphin]

As the Guardian article the OP shared and @Alex’s follow-up details, it’s important to learn about the sources of fish and seafood available to us.

By and large, US fisheries are quite well managed and provide good options for those of us in this country. For anyone looking for local fish and seafood options in the US or Canada, make sure to check out your options at https://finder.localcatch.org and filter by your criteria. 

I’m lucky to live in an area of the country with good options (availability of local seafood far from the coasts is understandably sparse) and privileged that I can afford to participate in a weekly delivery of fresh fish caught by local fishers.  Every week, I receive info about the fishers who caught that week’s fish, their fishing methods, which port their vessel brought the fish into and background on the fishery for that species. 

Since the commercial salmon fisheries off California have been closed for a few years due to concerns of overfishing, the wild-caught Alaskan salmon we get is procured from companies that process and freeze salmon caught by local SoCal fishers (and others) that sail up to Alaska for the season. 

Edited to add that not all the seafood I get is wild-caught. We’ve gotten locally farmed mussels, oysters, shrimp and abalone, all sustainably farmed.

 

 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by blue_dolphin
To add comment on farmed seafood - it can be done well (log)

[weinoo]

1 hour ago, blue_dolphin said:

Edited to add that not all the seafood I get is wild-caught. We’ve gotten locally farmed mussels, oysters, shrimp and abalone, all sustainably farmed.

Of course, though I do avoid using farmed shrimp at home. And ab is not something I see really at all.

Oyster farming is a net positive for the environment, and we’re in Portland, ME right now, enjoying that bounty.

 

I believe Trader Joe’s sells some wild salmon.

[blue_dolphin]

42 minutes ago, weinoo said:

Of course, though I do avoid using farmed shrimp at home

The farmed shrimp we’ve gotten was from TransparentSea Farm, an operation that’s currently on hiatus as they purchase land and build to expand. They raise the shrimp entirely indoors in tanks and provide fresh, head-on shrimp only hours out of the water. Why do you feel such shrimp should be avoided?

[Smithy]

As noted here, I started wondering about the source of the smoked salmon that I purchase here in Duluth. One of my favorite shops, Northern Waters Smokehaus, discusses the sources of their fish in their FAQs, but it was confusing: according to the FAQs, the salmon may be wild-caught or farmed. I wrote and asked them about it, and had an intereesting and nuanced discussion with their HR representative. With his permission, I'm quoting his writings:

 

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Hi Nancy,

 

Thank you for reaching out about this! So, in terms of wild-caught salmon, you are correct that we buy sockeye salmon from Dave Rogotzke, but we also buy from another local guy named Forrest Johnson. We also typically do whitefish, lake trout, and herring, all from Lake Superior, for wild caught lake fish.

 

In terms of Atlantic salmon, that is all farmed fish. Atlantic salmon is not fished commercially anymore due to depletion of numbers, so any Atlantic salmon you see in any market is farmed.

 

I may be projecting here a bit, but from your email it seems as though you may be concerned if some of our farmed fish comes from Chile? There are a lot of people who hold really strong opinions about farmed fish, and I figured that it would be ok to share some of what I know about fish farming and how we choose to source our farmed fish. If this is information that you already know, and I'm off base with my concern, I apologize.

 

First off, it bears mentioning that without farmed fish, the oceans would become depleted of fish. Commercial fishing of our oceans has caused some species to be completely eradicated, and even in the last few years a huge depletion

of King Crab and Salmon in Alaska have made those things all but impossible to buy. 

 

Just like land farms, fish farms are not all created equal, and even Chilean fish farms (the 2nd biggest source of Atlantic salmon in the world with Norway being the first) are not all the same, by far.

 

There are a couple of certifications that we look for when we source farmed fish:

 

 

BAP- Best Aquaculture Practices

 ASC- Aquaculture Stewardship Council

 

You can read up on these certifications, but they are basically looking at a series of points, from how their workers are treated to the means in which they do all aspects of their farming. When we see that a producer has these certifications, we can know that the fish is being produced in a sustainable and safe way, and we also know that the very highest quality product comes from farms who utilize these practices.

 

Since fish farming has been done in unsustainable ways in the past, people are right to question the practice. But ultimately, no fish farming is harming the oceans as much as over fishing is. It is always wise to ask questions when it comes to things like this, so we try to provide people with the insight that we have.

 

We believe that the salmon we get from Chile is just as good as any farmed fish available in the world, and at the amount we use it is readily available, and completely sustainable. We do source Atlantic salmon from Norway and Nova Scotia as well, and the quality of the Chilean stuff stands up to any other produced in the world. 

 

I hope this is helpful and not too heavy-handed! I am happy to answer more questions or talk through this more, so feel free to reach out at any time. Thank you so much for your loyal support of our business- we really appreciate it.

 

Best,

Greg

 

I followed up with:

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Hi, Greg!

 

Thank you very much for your detailed and thoughtful reply. I appreciate the advantages (necessities) of farmed fish although I'm well aware also of potential environmental issues. 

 

I specifically asked because of the article about Chilean salmon farming in yesterday's Guardian. If you have thoughts on the article, I'd love to read them; especially whether Northern Waters Smokehaus' protocol for sourcing farmed salmon avoids the specific issues mentioned in the article.

Here's the article: ‘Those who eat Chilean salmon cannot imagine how much human blood it carries with it’ https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/dec/02/chile-salmon-farms-fish-industry?CMP=share_btn_url

 

By the way: is that the Forrest Johnson who used to be the Editor in Chief (if I recall correctly) of the North Shore Journal? Not that it matters; I'm just curious. His name may be as common up here as mine!

 

Finally: may I share your response with the community of cooks and enthusiastic eaters in the eGullet forum? The Guardian article came up there and is being discussed. You make a good case for why farmed fish is necessary, and I see an opportunity for education. Here's a link to the discussion: https://forums.egullet.org/topic/168395-chilean-salmon/

 

(Also by the way: I've bragged you up on eGullet more than once!)

 

Cheers,

Nancy Smith (possibly even more common name than Forrest's)

Duluth

 

He responded:

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Hi Nancy,

 

Yes, you can absolutely share what I wrote. I read the article, and it definitely is painting in broad strokes (also kind of an inflammatory headline, in my opinion), but brings up some of the problems associated with Chilean farming that are very vital to the conversation. As stated in the article, their market has seen incredible growth in the last few years. There is no question that this ramping up has caused there to be a lot of bad producers. 

 

It's a similar conversation with all kinds of farming, whether done domestically or in a foreign country. There are a lot of factory farms that have terrible conditions for the animals, and are really environmentally toxic, but people don't really put together the fact that the very low price they pay for pork is directly related to farming at its worst, driven only by maximum profit margins. If you are ethically on board with consuming meat, you should probably also be on board with paying more for the most sustainable version of the meat. It all comes down to consumer education. Some people will never be compelled to think that farmed fish is anything other than harmful, but if we are thoughtful and do research, we can find that there are ethical, sustainable ways to raise fish.

 

SO, yes, the vetting we do does avoid the problems stated in the article, a big part of which is environmental impact. It would be interesting to see how Norway's farms compare to Chilean ones. Norwegian companies actually own a great percentage of the Chilean farms as well.

 

Forrest Johnson... no idea if he was the editor, but it wouldn't surprise me.

 

Thanks for advocating for us! Happy to have the conversation.

 

Best,

Greg