How to Avoid Eating GM Salmon

Updated October 2020

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

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.

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.

More Details

CBAN Factsheet: Genetically Engineered Salmon Produced and Sold in Canada, September 2020

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.
Until now, the GM salmon was produced at AquaBounty’s pilot plant run in Panama however this plant is now closed. Instead, the GM fish company AquaBounty is now producing GM salmon at two on-land sites: one in PEI and one in Indiana USA. The company says the first GM salmon from their PEI site will be “harvested” in January 2021. Read CBAN’s arrticle: No Label: Canada’s invisible genetically modified salmon in the Watershed Sentinel, November 2020.
About 9 tonnes of GM salmon has been sold in Canada since June 2017 – it was shipped to Quebec, Ontario and Newfoundland.
In September 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 was sold to foodservice companies (like restaurants and catering companies) and some to retail.
In 2017, CBAN secured statements from all the major grocery stores saying that they have no plans to sell the GM salmon. However, these statements may now be out of date: write to your grocery chain to find out. They mostly refer to seafood counters and may not cover all salmon products in stores.
A June 5, 2018 MacLean’s article discovered the companies that shipped the GM salmon into Quebec: wholesalers Montreal Fish Co. and Sea Delight Canada