Laszlo's Gourmet Smoked Fish

Known Scientifically as: Salmo salar

Laszlo’s Smoked Fish carries farm raised Atlantic Salmon, brought in fresh from Norway.

Farm Raised Salmon

It takes about 30 to 36 months to raise an Atlantic salmon from an egg to a market size of about 10 pounds. After 12 to 18 months in fresh water, the fish turns silver (a process known as “smoltification”) and is then placed in saltwater net pens.

By feeding fish a higher energy diet, salmon farmers have greatly lowered the cost of producing a pound of Atlantic salmon. Improved technology and better animal husbandry techniques have largely eliminated the use of antibiotics by the salmon-farming industry.

Farmed salmon get their reddish-orange color by the use of a synthetic carotenoid pigment called “astaxanthin,” which is added to their feed. This pigmentation is not cheap and can account for as much as 5% of the salmon’s total production costs. In the wild, salmon get these carotenoids from their diet, which includes animals such as shrimp.

Salmon Supply

Norway was the leading supplier of Atlantic salmon to the U.S until 1990. However, in 1991 a successful “anti-dumping” suit filed by Maine salmon farmers led to prohibitive tariffs on fresh, whole Norwegian salmon, making Norwegian salmon prohibitively expensive. That tariff does not apply to fillets or frozen whole fish, both of which are still exported to the U.S.

The development of pin-boning machines is leading to a large increase in U.S. imports of boneless fillets from Norway. Before a machine can pull salmon bones, however, the fish must be several days old so the muscle tissue can relax.

Wild Salmon

In the wild, Atlantic salmon are the only salmon that can spawn more than once. Unlike the Pacific variety, which die shortly after spawning, some Atlantics will spawn and return to the sea. Although there was once a significant commercial fishery for wild Atlantic salmon, conservation measures have reduced this fishery to a few thousand tons, most of which is caught off Greenland and Labrador.