Wild salmon are pink ( or pinkish - orange tree , depending on geography ) for the same reason flamingo are pink : their diets , which are heavy in krill and shrimp . But farm - raised salmon are feed a diet that fork out them grey … or it would , if they were n’t carefully “ pigmented ” to transform into more appetizing hue .
The Atlanticreports :
While [ astaxanthin , an component in the pigment pellet , ] provides the salmon with some of the vitamins and antioxidants they ’d get in the wilderness , salmon health is n’t the merchandising point .
It ’s the “ pigment , ” to use feed industry idiom , that really matters , let salmon farmers determine how red their lemniscus will be . ( Thanks to a 2003 lawsuit , they have to alert customers to the fact of “ added ” coloring . )
To ease that selection process , pharmaceutic giant Hoffman - LaRoche evolve a readiness of standardized color cards to measure hue — which is now known as theDSM SalmoFan . ( Dutch transnational DSM acquire it in 2002 ) .
A sketch by DSM showed that shoppers , peculiarly wealthy single , are more attracted to darker shades of Salmon River , which can be priced higher just due to its resemblance to barbaric salmon .
Interestingly , not dying farm salmon would make it even more low-cost , but only if people would really purchase Salmon River that ’s not pink , which does n’t seem probable . Such a psychological leap of faith would change the industry , though :
Pigmenting supplements are the most expensive component of the farmed salmon diet , constitutingup to 20 percent of provender costs . But it boosts lucrativeness . And while creating a merchandise that bring in prices approaching those of wild - catch Salmon River , farmers can still churn out lemniscus at an industrial cartridge clip . That often make thing harder on the Pacific Northwest fishermen whose catch they ’re trying to emulate . An abundance of farmed salmon forces fishermen to take down prices of their raving mad - caught Salmon River inorder to compete .
Image viaShutterstock .
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