Salmon not wild, 2 lawsuits say
11:18 PM 4/16/04
Judy Newman Wisconsin State Journal

When you buy salmon at the seafood counter of your favorite grocery store, do you know if it flashed its fins in the wild or if it swam within the confines of a fish farm? <

Two Madison men say they've been deceived into thinking they were buying wild salmon when they were really getting farm-raised fish, and they've filed separate but similar lawsuits in Dane County Circuit Court. <

The suits, filed this week against SuperValu (parent company of Cub Foods), Copps, and Wal-Mart (Sam's Club), claim the companies have used unfair and illegal practices by selling farm-raised fish that have been fed artificial coloring - canthaxanthin and astaxanthin - to make them look like the more-expensive wild salmon. <

Under state and federal laws, grocery stores are required to label salmon that's artificially colored and Cub, Copps and Sam's Club have not done so, say the plaintiffs, Miguel Gallego and Daniel Katz. <

"By concealing that the salmon they sell has been artificially colored, (the) defendants mislead consumers into believing that the mislabeled fish is wild rather than farm-raised. Additionally, this failure to label induces consumers to buy more fish and pay more for fish than they otherwise would," say the complaints filed by Madison attorney David Bender of Porter, Jablonski & Associates, who represents both men. <

The complaints say consumers "associate pale and farm-raised salmon with lower quality and often with health risk," but it makes no claim of injury to health. <

Gallego says he cannot comment yet; Katz was unavailable. Officials of SuperValu and Wal-Mart were also unavailable on Friday. <

But Copps officials issued a statement saying Copps "is committed to providing its customers with the highest quality and most wholesome foods available. <

"Some of the fresh fish we sell is farm raised. The farmers who raise these fish may use feed that enhances the fish's color. That feed is approved by all applicable regulatory agencies and is safe for consumers," the statement says. It adds that Copps is "reviewing our labeling policies in this regard." <

Wild salmon generally costs several dollars per pound more than farm-raised. At Seafood Center, 712 S. Whitney Way, wild sockeye salmon from Alaska, previously frozen, sells for $12.95 a pound while farm-raised, organically fed salmon from Britain costs $9.95 a pound. <

Some types of wild salmon cost even more. Copper River salmon, available for only a few weeks in the spring, sold last year for as high as $23 a pound, said Scott Kennedy, president of the Seafood Center. <

But it's not just the color that sets them apart. "They taste very different," he said. "If you're a salmon connoisseur, you can tell the difference pretty quick." <

Linda Candler, vice president of communications at the National Fisheries Institute in Arlington, Va., says the carotenoids fed to farm-raised salmon are the same as those wild salmon get by eating shrimp-consuming fish. <

"Carotenoids occur naturally; they've been used in our foods for many, many decades," Candler says. They're fed to chickens to make their egg yolks more yellow, and are found in food such as tomatoes, she says. <

Candler says the Dane County lawsuit is part of an organized effort. "There's an organization behind this campaign," she says. "The goal is to cause economic harm to salmon farmers and to outlaw the practice." <

One year ago, a similar lawsuit was filed in Seattle against the Albertsons, Safeway and Kroger grocery chains claiming deception, unfair business practices and negligent misrepresentation. The lawsuit was dismissed six months later; several grocery chains, though, did start labeling the products as "artificially colored" or "color added." <

The local complaints ask for double damages for the plaintiffs and any other consumers who have been misled into buying what they thought was wild salmon from the three chain stores during the past three years, but they offer no specific dollar amount. <

They also ask for an order requiring the store chains to "disgorge all gross revenues earned in Wisconsin through the sale of farm-raised, artificially colored salmon and other fish, when such artificially colored fish was not adequately labeled." <

The case has been assigned to Judge Moria Krueger; no hearing date has been set. <

Contact Judy Newman at jdnewman@madison.com or 252-6156. <

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