Alaska harvests half the number of salmon as Norway
Critics of the farmed salmon industry often attempt to perpetuate the myth that “wild” salmon is much better than farmed fish, and therefore they command a premium price. Not so, says the numbers from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game and the Norwegian Seafood Export Council. While there is no doubt that the average ex-vessel price for Alaskan salmon- much of which start its life in a hatchery being raised on a diet developed for the conventional salmon farming industry- has been going up in recent years, the average price is still less than US$2.- (~€1.38) per kilo (2011 figures).
The price increase of Alaskan salmon has been most noticeable for the large Chinook (King, Spring) salmon, but this species only represents a fraction (~2.7% in 2011) of the total harvest of salmon in Alaska. Clever marketing- especially for the famous Copper River Chinook- often pushes prices in Seattle for the first of these salmon of the season over the US$40.- per pound (~€73.- per kilo) mark. According to the Cordova Times, Alaska Chinook salmon fillets are selling for some US$15.95 per pound (~€29.- per kilo) in that town right now (September, 2012). A recent article by Margaret Bauman stated some of the current retail prices, but only for the most valuable species like Chinook, Sockeye (Red) and Coho (Silver) salmon.
But while the whole Alaskan salmon fishing season of some estimated 123.5 million fish caught this year will be worth approximately US$500 million (~€413 million) based on last year’s prices, Norwegian fish farmers will sell salmon for about US$ 5.2 billion(~€4.55 billion) this year. Volumes will be in the area of about 276,000 tonnes of Alaskan salmon compared with over a million tonnes coming from ocean-based farms in Norway. An average Alaskan salmon will be approximately 2.23 kilo and sell for about US$ 1.80 (~€1.50) per kilo (ex-vessel), while a typical Norwegian farmed Atlantic salmon will be over 4 kilo in size and exported for a price in the US$ 4.75 (~€3.93) per kilo range.
The main reason for the poor average price for Alaskan salmon is that most of the catches are of Pink (Humpback) salmon (approximately 37% of the harvested volume this year), and the price paid to fishers were US$0.95 (~€0.79) per kilo for this fish. Chum salmon (approximately 23% of the 2012 harvest) also (2011) fetched only some US$1.65 (~€1.36) per kilo. Both Pink and Chum salmon are very easy to produce in hatcheries, which makes them combined the most populous of all Alaskan salmon.
