What the pkg of Salmon says...

[Alana in Canada]

I am confused and wondering if some of you out there can explain this to me.

I bought a package of frozen "wild caught" salmon (by Aquastar.) I was sure to find the words "wild" on it--but I may have been duped. On the back ia a very prominent logo MSC which states that this means that my product "comes from a fishery that has been independentlycertified to MSC's standard for a well-managed and sustainable fishery.

Question 1: If it is from a fishery, what does "wild caught" mean? Someone speared the thing?

As well, the package also says: "Harvested in Alaska"

and it also says "Product of China."

Question 2: So, what, they speared it in Alaska, hopefully froze it on the boat and then shipped it to China to be put into a package and then shipped it back to Canada?

Thanks for any insights with this.

[Tom Denham]

Modern fishing vessels often have freezers on board to chill fish while they are at sea for weeks at a time, so freezing the fish in Alaskan waters and then transporting it to China for processing is a real possibility.

Wild caught is supposed to mean taken from a natural environment by any method. A fish from a farm is not wild regardless of how it is harvested.

I visited http://www.aquastar.com/ and was completely unimpressed by what I found. The site uses a lot of buzz words, but evidence of actually being good stewards of the earth is pretty thin. Their "Responsibly Sourced" standard is their own, not that of an independent group to which they are accountable. Their standard gives them the opportunity to say nice things about their having good values, but is basically a closed system. They allude to third-party audits of facilities, but that may be annual health department checks and no one can say for sure these audits are taking place except the company.

You might want to contact the company through the website and see what they can clarify about the wildness of your salmon.

[Nancy H.]

Sounds very suspect to me.

[Alana in Canada]

Thanks Tom. Interesting. I visited the website just now--after reading what you said and the mumbo jumbo sounded good to me. Guess I'm just not all that savvy about reading through the buzz words!