Scottish farmed salmon is the United Kingdom’s most valuable food export, famed worldwide for its high quality. Exports in 2023 totaled GBP581 million (EUR471 million). British consumers love it too; retail sales valued at GBP1.2 billion (EUR970 million) make Scottish salmon the kingdom’s favorite seafood.
But imports into the UK of salmon mislabeled as “Scottish” are creating a problem. The Scottish industry and Britain’s government are worried that when UK consumers get a taste of this inferior foreign product, believing it to be local, demand for the real thing will suffer. Now, Scottish salmon joins forces with hundreds of specialty food products around the world that are distinguished with a Protected Geographical Indication, ensuring their authenticity on the basis of unique regional characteristics and/or production techniques. It applies to farmed salmon from the coastal region of mainland Scotland, including the Western Isles, Orkney, and Shetland. The protected status, authorized by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), is indicated to consumers with a label on the product’s packaging. Salmon farmers applauded the move, saying it puts valuable legal weight behind their already substantial commercial efforts to promote product quality and global fame.
As elsewhere in the world, production of farmed salmon in Scotland is dominated by large firms, but there are also smaller farms, which can ill afford lost revenue caused by competition with fraudulent products. For these companies and their employees, the Protected Geographical Indication provided by the UK government is valuable economic support as well as a public signal of confidence in their product. In a separate development, the UK Secretary of State authorized the removal of “farmed” from the PGI label “Scottish farmed salmon,” in response to industry requests. Commercial sales of wild Atlantic salmon are illegal due to its environmentally depleted status, and the industry association Salmon Scotland considered the word unnecessary.