|
CleanFish Brings Pristine, Responsibly Farmed Salmon to Market With Loch Duart
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Wild salmon season is over, and it was a bad year for this beautiful fish. Fish and Game officials, commercial fisherman and fisheries biologists report the worst salmon runs in years throughout the Pacific Northwest and California.
CleanFish, a sustainable seafood company, is building a market for artisan wild salmon fisheries and for responsibly farmed salmon from producers such as Loch Duart. Beyond the fact that these producers share a common environmental ethic, working with artisan fishermen and farmers means that fresh, gorgeous salmon can be available year round.
"Over the past three years we have used salmon from Loch Duart exclusively and have always been happy with their consistent quality and freshness," says Chef de Cuisine Corey Lee of the legendary French Laundry in Yountville, CA.
Loch Duart raises 3,600 metric tons -- a tiny sliver of artisanal production -- of the world's estimated over 1 million metric tons of salmon production*. Raised in the icy waters off of Sutherland, at the northwest tip of Scotland, Loch Duart salmon has all the quality and flavor of a fish that has spent its life coursing in cold, turbid waters. The clean, bright flavor and color and firmness of the flesh are testament to the fish's good life and the quality of its feed.
The growing market for Loch Duart has not come without controversy. Salmon farming inspires intense debate. Chefs want salmon; the American palate craves it, both for taste and for health. But environmentalists ask: Can it be farmed sustainably?
"CleanFish welcomes open debate regarding Loch Duart," says CleanFish CEO and Cofounder Tim O'Shea, "Although Loch Duart boasts a strong sustainability profile, they are constantly striving to do better. Consumers benefit from knowing more about their food sources and seeing that all farmed salmon are not created equal."
Loch Duart farms an Atlantic salmon species indigenous to Scotland, and unlike most salmon farmers, Loch Duart operates their own hatchery on site. To avoid escapes and prevent genetic dilution of wild stocks, they replace nets every other year and fallow their sites for a full year out of every three. To encourage a healthy ecosystem, Loch Duart has low stocking densities and employs a polyculture system to encourage symbiotic biodiversity. They farm seaweed, sea urchins and salmon together; both the urchins and the seaweed eat the nutrients leftover from salmon feeding, making additional food sources to strengthen the ecosystem and their local food chain. Their customized feed mimics the natural diet, using only fish that are sustainably harvested according to guidelines published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas.
The fine taste of the fish and the impressive environmental practices of the operation made Loch Duart the winner of a Taste of Britain Gold Award for Best Food, the Freedom Food Award from Britain's Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and an endorsement from Greenpeace UK**.
CleanFish has made Loch Duart available from coast to coast, from San Francisco Fish Company in Ferry Building Marketplace to Le Cirque in New York City, at the finest retailers and restaurants in the United States. Taste for yourself the difference small-scale, artisanal production makes in a fish.
About CleanFish
CleanFish sources and promotes top quality seafood that is safe and sustainable. As a national seafood company, CleanFish functions as a market champion for small-scale fishermen and artisanal fish farmers, bringing wild-caught and sustainably farmed fish to restaurants, retailers and seafood distributors who form the CleanFish Alliance for Sustainable Seafood.
For more about CleanFish: http://www.cleanfish.com/index.html For more about Loch Duart: http://www.lochduart.com/ * This figure comes from FAO Fisheries Department, Fishery Information, Data and Statistical Unit, Fish Stat Plus: Version 2.3 2000, and is a total of the top five salmon-producing countries: Norway, Chile, United Kingdom, Canada and United States. ** Loch Duart has also won the national VIBES award for Vision in Business for the Environment of Scotland.
CleanFish
|
