Odd salmon products - Forums Archive

Once and Future

2013-01-03 22:53:13

I have to learn to keep my cell phone on me when in stores so I can take photos of dubious salmon products. I have seen two in the last week.

Today's was smoked salmon, labeled "Wild", "USA" and I believe "Alaska", that also listed FD&C red and yellow dyes. Why would that be necessary? Are they marketing chum and trying to make it appear more like king? Address of company was Federal Way. Again, have to start taking pictures. Oddly enough they list wood smoke as an ingredient. Can they legally call liquid smoke that, or are they at least going through a true smoking process?

The other product I saw a week ago was frozen salmon fillets with the various markings of "Wild" and "Caught in USA" and "product of China". What the hell?

When I leave the store I think I have the details memorized, but you can guess how I'm doin' at that. Is anyone else familiar with these products, and if not, concerned enough that I should go back and take some photos to post?

Abundance

2013-01-03 23:10:01

I really, really like that somebody is looking out for fish fraud. These incidences might be explained though. The food dye would be to make a more perfect looking smoked fish. And the buyers send a lot of seine fish to China for processing. It is cheaper to have it shipped back and forth over the ocean then it is to do them up on American soil. Neither of those things sound like very good possibilities, but I don't know if they can qualify as fish fraud. I think that fraud is more likely to be committed by restaurants and small stores than large scale frozen products. Maybe you should check out if they taste any good. If they do, you know its not farmed.

Drew

2013-01-04 04:20:51

The thing that baffles me sometimes, is when packages list wild alaskan salmon, and don't specify what kind of salmon. I've also looked through packs of frozen salmon (at Target I believe) and in the same packaging, if you looked at the ingredients it either listed: Pink Salmon, Chum Salmon, or Salmon (maybe some of each).

I saw wild Steelhead fillets at Whole Foods the other day. They were from Washington. I didn't know that there was a commercial Steelhead fishery. I'm not implying any kind of fraud, I'd just never seen it before.

Salty

2013-01-04 05:40:35

Tribal fisheries for Steelhead in Washington?

Trnaround

2013-01-04 17:54:41

Now that salmon is highly thought of as a healthy fish more people are buying it and with the many species of salmon and wild or farmed it is ripe for fraudulent marketing. The average person couldn't tell you what type of fish they are buying even if they knew what they wanted. Smarter consumers can figure it out or people in the industry but they are in the minority. I don't think we have an iron clad system for detecting miss marked products, does anybody know who checks up on it, I don't? I was in a Safeway store in Gig Harbor Washington (I always look at the seafood sections when grocery shopping much to the irritation of my dear patient wife) and they had "whole Wild King Salmon" on sale. They were about 26 inches long so I tracked down the store manager (my wife slightly embarrassed and getting a little impatient) and asked him to check on whether he was selling illegal salmon or were the King Salmon merely miss marked and they were really farm raised. It turned out to be the latter so they changed the sign and all was well. It only took about an hour for my wife to cool down but hey it was worth it to set the record strait. I think I cooked dinner that night,beef grass fed I am sure.

ericv

2013-01-04 19:15:50

I too appreciate the fact that we have fishers on this forum willing to do these spot checks, bringing attention to the managers if salmon is mislabeled (either intentionally or innocently) or if the quality of the product or how it is displayed/packaged is marginal for quality assurance. I do the same as others here when I am in any store that has fish for sale and while the family, employees and managers often do the classic eye roll and sigh - we are truly the experts, the rightful critics and also the front line of defense for not only our fishery but for the unsuspecting consumer. I say to us all, keep the pressure on and the digital photos going - we work damn hard as a collective group of west coast fishers to bring in the absolute finest salmon product on earth.

This past summer we were in Whitehorse, stopped at a large Costco type outfit and noted a large fish display. Upon checking it out I was impressed by the quality of the pinks and sockeye they had iced, not frozen on display. Looked to be seine or gillnet caught due to slight net evidence on sides, but all were thoroughly bled, properly packaged as wild and had a pull date very prominently displayed. The worker said they are strict on there fish handling and pull dates as they promoted the iced, not frozen product. I did note how incredibly cheap these fish were priced and feel our Canadian brethren fishers are being gouged on their dock prices. I thanked the gentleman and told him how much their efforts are appreciated for those of us getting our brains and bodies pounded to bring in this fine fish.

The flip side is later I was in Seattle at what used to be called Southcenter Mall near SeaTac. Stopped in at "Seafood City" a popular Asian food store, thinking this ought to be a good spot to troll for fish products. Well it was interesting. Tons of farmed everything from places my usual proficient geography had never heard of. I looked over the packaged salmon steaks which were listed as wild caught sockeye (previously frozen) and noted over 75% of them still had the black blood clotted along the backbone, some of the salmon had become discolored. I was careful in my probing, looking at packets and placing them back, setting aside ones that were not good - much to the displeasure of a rather large gentleman worker that spoke broken English. With some disgust and sourness, he pulled all the packets I had set aside. A manager type appeared, he was Asian and politely asked if I was an inspector to which I replied "yes I am". "With whom" he asked, I replied nicely "The Coalition of West Coast Salmon Producers" "Do you have a card" he asked? I said "yes" and pulled out my State of Alaska CFEC Troll Card which he puzzled over and handed back seemingly convinced. I gave a polite critique of the salmon quality and "suggestions" which he nodded and thanked me for. I left, noticing him fussing over the whole display of salmon.

We've got to hold their feet to the fire on this and tactfully so - being that sometimes the person working behind the display is as ignorant and clueless as the average consumer. I now carry one of my sons smart phones (they upgraded) which is indeed smarter than I and causes a 5 degree list to starboard while attached to my belt. I'm sure it will be used to further document the Good, the Bad and Ugly handling of our pristine product. Thanks again to all of you making a difference out there - even at the risk of weathering (not withering to) the Spousal Cavitation/Irritation Syndrome.

Once and Future

2013-01-04 23:12:58

I was disappointed to see the dye added to wild product, as that WAS one very nice sound bite of why to buy wild vs. farmed.

I was disappointed to see wild US fish being turned into a "product of China" because that was another good point of differentiation between our fish and farmed. (As well as for other obvious reasons.)

After thinking it through, I realize ASMI must get a lot more money from seiners and others than they do from trollers. So they are not going to be the body that educates the public on how troll caught fish are THE highest quality salmon one can buy.

I am in the midwest right now, and consumers here are clueless as to different salmon species. Species was not on either of these labels at all.

I have not heard anyone talk of any feedback from the cooking show we challenged last week. I did think of one new sound bite we should make use of, due to Garrett's analogy. "Wild salmon is to farmed salmon as free range chicken is to caged chicken." If we could get that in people's brains, that would dispel the myth about "gamey flavor".