The Kroger Co. announced that it will begin including the words “color added” to the labels of all farm-raised fish from the Salmonid family, including salmon and trout, and will modify the labels of processed products that contain those farm-raised fish.
The move comes after last week’s announcement that Kroger, Safeway and Albertsons were being sued by a Seattle law firm that maintains that the chains ought to tell consumers that the farm-raised salmon they sell has been dyed pink.
“Pink sells salmon,” lawyer Paul Kampmeier told The Associated Press. “To artificially color salmon without giving that information to consumers, we believe that's unfair and deceptive, and it's also against federal law.”
According to the AP, wild salmon is pink because of what it eats. Farmed salmon has naturally grayish flesh.
"Many suppliers add supplements to the food given to their farm-raised salmon and trout," said Dr. Keith Neer, Kroger's vice president of corporate food technology and regulatory compliance. "These additives, which are substantively identical to those naturally occurring in the diets of many wild salmon and trout, enhance the pigmentation of the farm-raised fish. While the supplements do not affect the taste or nutritional value of the fish, we are modifying the product labels to share this information with our customers."
The British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association says the pigments added to farmed fish food are synthetic versions of what naturally occurs in nature, and compared it to taking a Vitamin C pill instead of eating an orange.
No word yet on how this will affect the status of the lawsuit filed against Kroger.
The move comes after last week’s announcement that Kroger, Safeway and Albertsons were being sued by a Seattle law firm that maintains that the chains ought to tell consumers that the farm-raised salmon they sell has been dyed pink.
“Pink sells salmon,” lawyer Paul Kampmeier told The Associated Press. “To artificially color salmon without giving that information to consumers, we believe that's unfair and deceptive, and it's also against federal law.”
According to the AP, wild salmon is pink because of what it eats. Farmed salmon has naturally grayish flesh.
"Many suppliers add supplements to the food given to their farm-raised salmon and trout," said Dr. Keith Neer, Kroger's vice president of corporate food technology and regulatory compliance. "These additives, which are substantively identical to those naturally occurring in the diets of many wild salmon and trout, enhance the pigmentation of the farm-raised fish. While the supplements do not affect the taste or nutritional value of the fish, we are modifying the product labels to share this information with our customers."
The British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association says the pigments added to farmed fish food are synthetic versions of what naturally occurs in nature, and compared it to taking a Vitamin C pill instead of eating an orange.
No word yet on how this will affect the status of the lawsuit filed against Kroger.
- KC's View:
- We suppose that the status of the lawsuit against Kroger will be determined by whether the law firm filing it was looking to make right something it believed was wrong, or was just looking for a quick buck.
