Salmon lawsuits irk Maine fish farmers

PORTLAND – Maine fish farmers are seeing red over lawsuits challenging the pink color of salmon.

Three class-action lawsuits were filed this week in Seattle against Kroger, Safeway and Albertson’s, the nation’s three largest supermarket chains. The lawsuits argue that the stores should tell consumers that the farm-raised salmon they sell is not naturally pink, but rather gets its color from additives to salmon feed.

Steve Page, compliance officer at Atlantic Salmon in Belfast, said salmon get their orange-pink color from a pigment found in carrots and other vegetables that is part of the salmon feed mixture. He said the pigment is naturally occurring and essential for fish health, as well as giving the fish their color.

“It’s another wedge they’re trying to get in to scare the public and to scare the markets regarding the value of farmed salmon,” said Page.

Andrew Fisk, aquaculture coordinator for the Department of Marine Resources, said salmon – on farms and in the wild – need the compounds to be healthy. While wild salmon gets its compounds from algae, shrimp and other food in the ocean, the farmed fish diet must be supplemented.

“If they weren’t there, the flesh would be gray, but the fish wouldn’t be getting a portion of their diet that they need,” said Fisk. “It’s not as pernicious and underhanded as is being alleged. There’s a dietary basis for it as well as having a functional effect of [turning the flesh pink].”

The class-action suits seek damages for all consumers who have purchased farmed salmon across the country in the past four years. A lawyer filing the suits said it is unfair, deceptive and illegal to artificially color salmon without telling shoppers.

Page and Fisk said they didn’t know if Maine salmon farms have sold any product to the three grocery chains named in the lawsuit.

Maine salmon farmers harvested 29.1 million pounds of fish valued at $58.2 million in 2001.