Chile-based Verlasso has launched an interactive online educational tool, Save the Fish, to inform consumers about how the forage fish utilized to produce its farmed Atlantic salmon.
Verlasso estimates that, since its inception in 2011, it has saved more than 6 million pounds of wild-caught feeder fish, like Peruvian anchoveta, by producing salmon with a feed formulation that has replaced significant amounts fishmeal and fish oil with a genetically modified yeast. Verlasso says that for every 2 pounds of its farmed salmon consumers buy, they save 8 pounds of feeder fish.
“In addition to taste and texture, sustainability is a major deciding factor when it comes to which salmon a conscientious consumer chooses to take home,” said Scott Nichols, director of Verlasso. “Each time someone purchases Verlasso salmon, he or she directly participates in saving wild-caught feeder fish, an ocean resource we need to protect. For the first time, the Save the Fish interactive website allows seafood lovers to quantify the positive impact their Verlasso purchase has on saving those fish and the future of our oceans.”
The company is also teaming up with SeaShare, the only non-profit organization that focuses on seafood and the seafood industry as a source of nutrition for hunger relief. Once retailers and consumers help Verlasso save 7 million pounds of wild-caught fish, Verlasso will make a donation to SeaShare, which, since 1994, has provided more than 200 million meals to Feeding America’s food bank network.
“We are proud to have Verlasso® as a partner in our hunger-relief efforts,” said Jim Harmon, executive director of SeaShare. “SeaShare believes in the power of seafood to enrich lives. Working together with Verlasso through Save the Fish, we can put more seafood on more tables.”
The Save the Fish campaign includes a mobile-friendly website that informs users about what makes Verlasso salmon different from other farmed salmon and works with social media; an impact calculator, which allows users to calculate how many pounds of wild-caught feeder fish they’ve saved based on how many pounds of Verlasso salmon they’ve purchased; and point-of-sale materials for retailers like fish fact posters, counter-top easels and packaging stickers.
