Mainstream Salmon is the local branch of a large multinational fish farming company called Cermaq. Based in Norway, they have foreign operations in Scotland, Chile and Canada. On Thursday, September 1st our group met with Mainstream’s Sustainability Officer, James Costello, and visited one of their open-net aquaculture sites
Testing water quality outside pens at Mainstream salmon site.
Mainstream differs from Creative Salmon, the fish-farm visited earlier in the week, in several key respects. This company raises Atlantic rather than Pacific Salmon. Atlantics grow faster and survive in higher density. They are also more passive in the pen. Overall, their level of domestication affords relative ease in aquiculture. Mainstream is also a much larger corporation than Creative. This is a point of contention for some environmentalists who portray Mainstream as the “evil” foreign company lacking environmental conscience. More on this subject in a moment.
