Salmon is one of Norway’s most valuable exports. The most expensive and most exclusive salmon is sold as “superior” salmon. Which class the salmon ends up in determines which million values the salmon achieves in a foreign country that is hungry for a Norwegian and clean product. news can say for the first time that inspections and controls established that a large batch of Norwegian salmon from the farming company Lingalaks AS was of poor quality. A fishing company milled the salmon and wanted to send it for animal feed. But another fishing company believed that the salmon from the same lot could be sent abroad as high-quality salmon. Salmon categories Superior (fish of the best quality without defects and blemishes, it is preferred in the export market) Ordinary (limited external and internal defects) Production fish (fish that has been dying or diseased during slaughter, or has deformities or gross processing errors. It can be used for human food, e.g. processed products.) If the salmon has died of its own accord in the cage, it must not be used for human consumption. In principle, raw salmon should not be used for human consumption either, but there are exceptions. “Weak salmon” had to be slaughtered On 16 and 17 August, the slaughter boat “Seifisk jr.” to farm and collect salmon from the farm Toska N in the municipality of Alver in Western Norway. Bløgging is a work process in the cage where the salmon is drained of blood. It is basically required if farmed salmon is to be sold as human food. – Salmon that has not been bled can become soggy in the fish meat and have a poorer shelf life, says veterinarian Margrethe Stølen, who is a senior inspector at the Norwegian Food Safety Authority. The slaughter boat arrived since it was decided that large quantities of salmon would be slaughtered because they were “weak”, according to the breeder Lingalaks. The salmon was bled at the merdekant by employees of “Seifisk jr.”. . SOFT: Salmon that was finished packing at the butchery. Photo: Norwegian Food Safety Authority 60 per cent were “superior” Time is money in the farming industry. From the time the salmon is taken out of the cage, the process to exclusive food must go quickly to maintain quality and avoid bacteria. The fish must be sent to the slaughterhouse and production factory as quickly as possible. The salmon gets a lower value if it doesn’t get to the market quickly. The freshly hatched salmon from the farm was transported to the Hardanger Seafood AS slaughterhouse on the island of Bømlo. There, the salmon was divided into three different categories: Superior, ordinary and production fish. About 60 per cent of the entire batch of salmon received class superior, director Nina Møgster of Lingalaks tells news. All the salmon were then quickly gutted, packed and put into cold storage. Warning Soon two trailers arrived and picked up boxes of salmon. The trailers ran on assignment for the export company Sjór AS. All the boxes of salmon, a total of 8,000 kilos, that the trailers took with them were labeled “superior”. This means that the salmon can be considered farmed salmon of prime quality and cleared for the export market. But then employees at the slaughterhouse discovered a discrepancy: not all the salmon that came from the Toska N farm had been bled correctly. General manager Knut-Roger Sivertsen of Haradanger Seafood confirms that part of the salmon was sent away on the trailers without the error being caught: – We did not discover that the fish was insufficiently “bløgged” before it was sent out from us, says Knut-Roger Sivertsen, general manager at the Hardanger Seafood butchery. Bløgging salmon Bløgging is cutting fish so that the blood runs off it. Raw salmon should not be sold for human consumption. In Norwegian aquaculture, there is a requirement that the fish is bled before it is slaughtered and packed. Correct bluing is important for the quality of the fish. Uncooked fish contains blood and gets bacterial growth more easily. Bløgging should take place when the fish is taken on board. It is important that the fish is bludgeoned alive. Then the pumping functions of the heart will help when the blood vessels have to be emptied. Do not cut the fish until it has been drained of blood. Dead-at-sea/self-dead fish must also be blued. If the fish has been dead for a long time, it is more difficult to bludgeon. Farmed fish must be anesthetized before being bled. By then, the trailers with salmon had managed to get some distance towards the export market. The export company Sjór was notified of the defective blueing. Then those trailers stopped. This company had an agreement with the Lingalaks to buy the salmon lot. 70 out of 100 salmon were not bled. After dialogue between Lingalaks and Sjór, all salmon on the trailers were destroyed, that is to say that salmon marked first-class was ground, so that it would not become human food. But before the salmon was milled, the quality was checked by Sjór’s parent company, Bremnes Offshore AS. They took random checks of 100 fish that were on the trailer before destruction: Only 14 out of 100 salmon were bled according to the requirements, i.e. bled correctly. 70 out of 100 salmon were completely unbleached. – Parts of the fish were already on their way to the market when the deviation was reported, confirms Nina Møgster, director of Lingalaks, which sold the salmon to Sjór. Lingalaks is also a co-owner of the slaughterhouse. The owners of Hardanger Seafood Lingalaks AS – 27,000% Tombre Fiskeanlegg AS – 24,400% Eidesvik Laks AS – 18,400% Salmar ASA – 17,200% Fylkesnes Fisk AS – 13,000% Sjór had agreed to buy all superior and ordinary salmon from the farm Toska N, and this amounted to significant parts of the party. Now the trade was stopped. – Sjór did not want to buy more fish from this slaughter batch, writes communications manager for Sjór/Bremnes Seashore, Simon Nesse Økland, to news. The Norwegian Food Safety Authority suddenly came to visit But others were also to react to the bad salmon. On the same day that the export company Sjór stopped the trailers with the bad salmon, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority had received a tip. They heard that much of the salmon in Hardanger Seafood’s cold storage was insufficiently bled. The Norwegian Food Safety Authority made an urgent decision. The decision was imposed on the owners of the slaughter boat “Seifisk jr.” to ensure proper blogging. The Norwegian Food Safety Authority’s assessment: Inadequate bluing, i.e. inadequate killing, could lead to fish waking up again after being sedated. Even if the fish will die in the leaching tank as a result of crowding and the conditions there, failure to bleed could lead to great suffering for the fish in question, and is poor animal welfare. The Norwegian Food Safety Authority considers the breach of rules to be very serious for animal welfare. We believe that it is necessary and proportionate to make a decision without prior notice, because it is urgent to implement the decision, in order to prevent poor animal welfare and suffering in more fish. After the emergency decision, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority’s inspector went to the Hardanger Seafood AS slaughterhouse in Bømlo. The inspector also wanted to check claims that large quantities of salmon were soft and unbleached. In total, 119 random salmon from 20 different crates were checked by the Norwegian Food Safety Authority’s veterinarian. The result was disappointing in terms of the quality of the beer. Almost all the salmon the inspector checked was unbleached or inadequately bled. “The fish is soft” It is a requirement from the authorities that farmed salmon must be drained of blood, both for reasons of bacteria, quality and animal welfare. In the regulations, it is stated that raw salmon should not be used for human consumption in the first place. And the conclusion in the report from the Norwegian Food Safety Authority’s inspection was discouraging when it came to the issue of blogging. – The fish is soft and the fibers split under pressure, wrote the Norwegian Food Safety Authority’s veterinarian about a salmon. Other salmon were referred to as unbleached or mis-bleached. One of the inspection’s photos shows salmon with greyish gills, a sign that the fish is no longer fresh. GILLS: These gills were grey, not reddish. Photo: Norwegian Food Safety Authority Only a few salmon were almost correctly bled, according to the report. Unbleached and heavily bled salmon were also found in crates at the slaughterhouse that were labeled superior. The company decides whether the salmon loses its “superior” status. The fish was therefore far from prime quality. But such a disappointing result in an inspection by the Norwegian Food Safety Authority does not trigger any demand that the fish be given a different, worse classification. – It is up to the production company to change the classification. In this case, Hardanger Seafood, says Margrethe Stølen, senior inspector at the Norwegian Food Safety Authority. In this case, the salmon could be downclassified as production fish or possibly destroyed to become, among other things, animal feed. Production fish provide a much lower price for breeders than is the case for superior salmon. The regulations state that production fish cannot be exported. This will, among other things, ensure the salmon’s good reputation and the reputation of one of the country’s most important export industries abroad. Such fish can be used for the production of processed fish products in Norway, and it must be processed in Norway before possible export. Classification did not change Now it was up to the butchery Hardanger Seafood and Lingalaks to decide the salmon’s further journey. Despite the deficiencies, the slaughterhouse found no reason to change the classification. They believed that the salmon could nevertheless be exported as both superior and ordinary fish. And it did not prove difficult to find a buyer. The salmon exporter Bravo Seafood AS registered its interest in the salmon in the cold storage at Hardanger Seafood. Bravo Seafood’s plan had anyway been to buy the worst salmon from the Toska batch, so-called production fish, which were not good enough for the export market. Sent to Måløy factory The boxes with the salmon were then sent to the Måløy company Babord Seafood AS. The company has factories in both Norway and Poland that produce fish products. – Babord Seafood received the salmon to check the quality, says Karl Petter Myklebust, general manager and co-owner of Bravos Seafood. Babord ordered samples of the salmon from the Food Environment Laboratory in Måløy and from a Polish company. After testing the bacteria content, Babord Seafood concluded that the salmon met a sufficiently good standard. Only 20 kilos were decided to be destroyed. Close to 50,000 kilos of salmon were sent for production at Babord’s factories in Raudeberg and in Poland. More than half were still classified as superior. The salmon bought by Babord Seafood AS: Salmon classed Production fish: 17,840.25 kilos, sent to factory Raudeberg. Salmon classed superios/ordinary 18,193.84 kilos, sent to factory Raudeberg. Salmon class superior/ordinary 13,616.62 kilos sent to factory in Poland According to seller Lingalaks, a total of 60 percent of the batch was of superior quality. The classification was carried out by Hardanger Seafood AS Ble fiske fillet – There were no deviations noted in the form of blood tests in the fillet, but the meat was softer in the meat than is optimal for fillet production. That is according to Simen Lyng, deputy chairman of Babord Seafood. ADVENTUROUS GROWTH: The company Babord Seafood, belonging to Agnar Lyng and family. has had an adventurous growth in just a few years. Photo: Asgeir Heimdal Reksnes / news – What kind of products were made from the salmon and where were they sold? – The fish was produced into frozen fillets, portions and blocks for various European customers. We have so far not received any complaints about goods originating from this lot, writes Lyng to news. The company behind the bluefish vessel “Seifisk jr.”, Br Bakke, still believes that all the fish were bluefish. SEIVIK BOAT: One of the slaughter boats for Br. Ground. Photo: Seivik AS Recently, Br. Hill in bad weather, in another case that news has mentioned. The Norwegian Food Safety Authority claimed one of their boats in September was in the process of sending dead fish from a Lerøy location to the slaughterhouse to become food fish. Changed the routines for blueing Lingalaks denies that the salmon from the farm Toska N was dead or sick when it was collected by “Seifisk jr.”. – Could there also have been dead fish in this batch from Lingalaks? – It was fish that was assessed as weak. Because it could not withstand being loaded well, a boat was used which killed the fish at the edge of the cage. It is true that much of the fish was soft, writes director Nina Møgster in Lingalaks. Both Lingalaks and Hardanger Seafood say they have changed routines for the requirements for blueing according to the Norwegian Food Safety Authority’s report.
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Salmon considered wrecked for animal feed – was instead sold as a premium product – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
