Concerns around salmon farming have been about as persistent as sea lice in recent years.

But yesterday’s revelations over organic fish farms in Scotland – the farms may not actually be that organic, it turns out – should set further alarm bells ringing.

The Daily Mail investigation – undertaken in collaboration with Ecotricity founder and environmental campaigner Dale Vince’s Green Britain Foundation – revealed “significant concerns” at four organic fish farms owned by Norwegian seafood giant Mowi. Those concerns regarded its use of chemicals not permitted by organic certification scheme the Soil Association.

Citing open-source data, the probe revealed salmon from the farms – despite being labelled as organic – had been exposed to chemicals including insecticides deltamethrin (used to tackle sea lice), emamectin benzoate and azamethiphos.

All three posed significant risks to aquatic ecosystems and non-target species, while the latter is also potentially toxic to humans, the investigation claimed.

But “certification loopholes” mean salmon treated with the chemicals could still be labelled as organic on supermarket shelves until at least the end of the year, GBF said. Those loopholes allow previously non-organic farms to convert existing stock to organic status after just a three-month period.

Implications include health risks and an erosion of trust among “deceived” consumers, on top of an environmental impact, the campaign group warned. It urged consumers to “exercise caution when purchasing organic salmon”, while calling for “greater transparency and stricter enforcement of organic standards across the aquaculture industry”.

Consumer trust, of course, is a hot topic across the entire food sector.

Just last week, The Grocer revealed 39% of British adults do not trust major food brands and supermarkets to tell the truth about where food comes from, according to a poll of 2,260 UK adults by YouGov for PR firm Reverberate.

That poll also revealed more than half (53%) of adults did not trust major brands and supermarkets to tell the truth on the sustainability of food, while 50% did not trust brands and supermarkets to tell the truth on health credentials.

Those concerns have been fuelled by a string of damaging exposés alleging poor animal welfare at RSPCA Assured farms and food businesses this year. 

Interestingly, though, levels of outrage over the Mail’s salmon story haven’t reached those surrounding Arla’s use of the methane-inhibiting feed additive Bovaer. That’s despite the huge popularity of salmon over the festive period. Many commenters on X have instead used the investigation to personally criticise the politics of well-known Labour donor Dale Vince. Draw from that what you will.

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In response to the investigation, the Soil Association has been keen to point out it has tightened rules this year to ban the practice of converting stock to organic.

“This means that even converting sites cannot produce organic animals unless they have sourced organic juveniles and kept them to organic standards for their entire lives,” it said. Even though it was previously possible for sites to convert to organic over a three-month period, these fish “were subject to some of the strictest fish farming standards in the UK”, the organisation added.

It did admit “there are a very limited number of fish remaining in the system that were produced to the earlier conversion standards”. However, the short shelf life of the products means “it is very unlikely shoppers will be buying these products beyond this winter”, it stressed.

Mowi, for its part, said only one of the eight farms it has converted to organic had used “an early treatment with azamethiphos”.

The other seven farms had used limited amounts of emamectin benzoate and deltamethrin “early within the juvenile stage of the growth cycle and more than sufficient time had passed to ensure no detectable levels of these compounds in the salmon”, it added.

One of the four farms featured in the Mail report had also been withdrawn from organic certification altogether, the Soil Association confirmed, so any stock present on that site will be non-organic and will never carry the organic logo.

Despite these mitigations, there is a wider issue here. The report simply adds to mounting concerns around salmon farming and the treatment of salmon, with campaigners calling for greater regulation of the sector. And it marks yet another negative PR blow for the industry, following allegations of poor animal welfare, cartel behaviour by major suppliers and misleading marketing around sustainability – all since spring this year.

Fresh salmon sales remain strong in UK supermarkets, according to data for The Grocer’s Top Products survey [NIQ 52 w/e 18 September], with value sales climbing by £65.7m this year on largely flat volumes, despite a 6.3% average price hike.

But how long will this last against such a growing a tide of controversy?

Any more damaging exposés could well provoke the kind of boycott calls that have plagued the dairy sector. And in the face of so many scandals, the salmon industry will have a tough time mounting a defence.

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