Salmon farm on Bainbridge lands Whole Foods deal
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND -- The sea gulls know it's feeding time, even though the brown food pellets flying their way aren't meant for them.
At an offshore salmon farm here, the fish dine on a mixture of anchovy, herring, wheat, soybeans and corn. They receive no hormones, antibiotics or steroids. They aren't genetically engineered. They swim in pens filled with one-half to two-thirds the number of salmon in typical Canadian farms.
Double nets keep salmon in and sea predators out. Another net protects the top of the pens, giving gulls a place to perch as they try to catch the pellets that are blown in by a rotating feeder machine.
American Gold Seafood bills itself as the only farm raising "natural" salmon in the United States, a designation that is subjective, since no authority confers such status.
But the company's practices and product were enough for it to snag the Whole Foods account last year, even though Northwest shoppers wouldn't know it: The upscale grocer doesn't carry the locally raised fish in its Seattle and Portland stores, citing poor public response to salmon not caught in the wild.
"In the Pacific Northwest, it's a socially sensitive subject," said Adam Smith, Whole Foods' seafood coordinator for Northern California and the Northwest. Or, as a seafood clerk said at Whole Foods' Ravenna store, "We've had it, but it just doesn't sell."
Whole Foods carries the locally farmed salmon in 20 stores in Northern California and up to 20 more in the Rocky Mountain region and Florida.
Last week's warning from the state Health Department about eating chinook salmon from Puget Sound because of contaminants doesn't affect American Gold Seafood, since it raises Atlantic salmon.
The state placed Atlantic-farmed salmon on the list of seafood that consumers could eat safely and regularly, up to three times per week.
Still, farmed salmon face some obstacles, as the Whole Foods experience indicates. Something that might elevate its acceptance in environmentally conscious Seattle is certification as "organic," which American Gold Seafood would look forward to receiving, once federal standards are approved.
Proposed standards have stirred criticism from those who consider the industry to be detrimental to the environment or a waste of resources.
The National Environmental Trust, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., is waging a "Pure Salmon Campaign" with other groups that oppose aquaculture organic standards recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Standards Board.
The campaign calls for closed containers, such as fiberglass or concrete tanks, instead of net pens, the idea being that an impermeable barrier would prevent the transmission of diseases and parasites and eliminate escaped fish and discharged waste into the ocean.
Such shortcomings of traditional salmon farms might apply elsewhere, but not in Washington, said John Bielka, general manager of American Gold Seafood, a subsidiary of Seattle-based Smoki Foods Inc. The company owns saltwater salmon farms at four sites in Washington, representing all such operations in the state.
By using a "natural" feed that does not contain land animal products or hormones, antibiotics, steroids or sulfites, the salmon contain more of the desired omega-3 fatty acids, Bielka said.
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Salmon farm on Bainbridge lands Whole Foods deal
