Our Norwegian Salmon and why we didn't stock it sooner

Traditionally salmon farms have carried a poor reputation with regards to environmental impact, feed, antibiotics and by products. This, coupled with the carbon footprint of air freight, have been a major factor as to why Greenfish not stocked the product previously.

Local Ocean Trout

This local hero has been well received by many of our happy customers, and has been a great local alternative to imported salmon.  We are however facing some challenges with the small-scale farming operator we are working with.  The seals in the area have found the taste of this local delicacy so irresistible that they devised a cunning way to get inside the pens and have had a great feast. Sadly, due to this we don’t expect to have local ocean raised trout ready for home deliveries for the next few months. 

In order to bring you a similar experience to our ocean trout, we have partnered up with a salmon farm in Norway and will be flying in fresh Norwegian superior grade salmon every week.

Norwegian Salmon

We are happy to say we have found a family run producer that believes in much the same things we do. They are a licensed farm and operate in an environmentally appropriate location to avoid impact on the area.  The water they are raised in is cool and clear, and they have allocated a ratio of 97.5% water to 2.5% salmon per facility to ensure the fish have sufficient space to swim and grow.   The salmon grow at their own pace and reach 4-8kg in just 12-18 months.  Because of the spacious pen size, fish remain generally healthier throughout their lifecycle and no routine antibiotics are used.

Feed has been reduced from a 5:1 ratio of ocean fish based pellets, to 1.2kg of feed  to grow 1kg of salmon.  Of this, roughly 70% of the feed ingredients are derived from vegetable sources, the balance being from marine resources, and of this the bulk comes from fish that is not used for human consumption such as offcuts. This farmed Atlantic salmon has a lower carbon footprint than both beef and pork and the farm is an accredited member of GLOBALG.A.P. Organisation.

Salmon from Norway has a pure fresh taste, with fat marbling and an attractive red-orange colouring.

Greenfish is planting trees

Despite the good record of the salmon we have picked, we cannot ignore the impact of physically flying it over from Europe. We have decided to partner with a local NGO, Greenpop, in an effort to offset some of these carbon emissions.

At Greenfish we endeavour to go local where possible. This not only supports local businesses and fishing communities, it also brings South Africa’s best produce to South Africans to enjoy. It has a lower impact on our environment, as we have re-usable packaging and shorter distances to travel to get the freshest fish to our factory to process. We understand that flying a salmon in packaging has a greater impact than our locally sourced produce. We will be planting 1 tree for every 10 boxes of salmon fillets we sell in an effort to help offset some of our impact of selling this product.  The trees will be planted around the coastal fishing community of Gaansbaai in an effort to increase bio diversity and expand the ecosystem in the area.