A Canadian buyer told the the company’s CEO: “we’ll take as much as you can produce.”
The biotechnology that makes its land-based AquAdvantage salmon grow faster through genetic engineering, sold 4.5 tonnes of its produce so far this year according to cbc and a Canadian buyer is using their engineered salmon for ‘high-end sashimi line’.
The company’s claims its genetically engineered fish – taken from chinook and Atlantic salmon genes – require 20 to 25 per cent less feed than farm-raised Atlantic salmon. The salmon are grown at two specific land-based facilities: one in Canada, where the breeding stock are kept, and Panama, where the fish for market will be grown out using eggs from the Canada facility.
Canadian supermarkets become the first in the world to stock genetically modified fish in August and there is no requirement in Canada for the fish to be labelled as genetically engineered.
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“The people who bought our fish were very happy with it,” Ronald Stotish, the company’s CEO told the investors as reported in the publication. “They put it in their high-end sashimi lines, not their frozen prepared foods,” he said.
AquaBounty is hoping to eventually grow the fish in North America. It has a facility in Indiana, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is currently blocking the importation of the salmon eggs from Canada, even though the FDA has approved AquaBounty salmon for sale in the United States.
The company announced that it had received FDA approval to raise AquAdvantage Salmon at its land-based contained facility near Albany, Indiana. However, congress is still battling it out over the exact details on labelling its products. The company has indicated that it is fully prepared to comply with labelling requirements for its product in order for this process to conclude in the near term.
Stotish is confidant that of the popularity of genetically modified salmon in the food will grow. He told the investor conference that AquaBounty’s Canadian buyer told him: “We’ll take as much as you can produce.”
