How to Avoid Eating GM Salmon

Updated June 2024

GM Atlantic salmon is the world’s first genetically modified (GM or genetically engineered) food animal. It is being sold in Canada but it is not labelled as genetically modified.

Update June 2024:

GM salmon production in the US and Canada is currently halted.

The company AquaBounty is not currently producing any genetically modified (GM or genetically engineered) salmon. The company is selling their only remaining working “tank-farm” (in Indiana) and has emptied it of fish, though they plan to build another, bigger facility (in Ohio).

Picture taken at the seafood counter at a Farm Boy store in Ottawa, June 2018

If I want to avoid eating GM salmon, what salmon should I buy?

• Buy only wild salmon – do not buy farmed salmon.
• Do not buy salmon.
• Ask your grocery store and at your restaurant. The grocery chains Metro, Loblaw and Costco do not sell GM salmon – check our 2020 ranking of grocery stores.

Take Action

• Write to the head office of your grocery store to ask if they are selling GM salmon.
• Write to the head office of you favourite sushi chain or favourite restaurant to ask them not to sell the GM salmon.

Contact us to let us know what they tell you.

More Details

• All genetically modified (GM) Atlantic salmon is farmed, and all Atlantic salmon is farmed salmon. There is no wild Atlantic salmon fishery because Atlantic salmon is an endangered species.
• All the GM salmon sold on the market will now come from one on-land “tank farm” run by the company AquaBounty in Indiana, USA.
• In 2018, AquaBounty’s CEO told investors that a Canadian buyer is using the GM salmon for a “high-end sashimi line” (a type of sushi).
• Import documents obtained through Access to Information requests show that most of the GM salmon sold in 2017 was sold to foodservice companies (like restaurants and catering companies) and some to retail.
• The grocery chains Metro, Loblaw and Costco have made statements that they are not selling the GM salmon: check our 2020 report on retailers. Metro has re-confirmed they will not sell GM salmon 2022-2036. Statements from the other grocery chains can change anytime: write to your grocery chain to find out.
• The first GM salmon – from a small pilot plant in Panama that is now closed – was sent to Canada in 2017.
• Click here for more details and background on the GM salmon.