While wild salmon may evoke images of the great outdoors, its farmed cousin has become equally adept at telling its own tale. Increasingly, farmed salmon is building a following through branding or by relying on its country of origin to create a positive marketing message.
Verlasso, which produces salmon in Patagonia, Chile, through a venture with AquaChile, spent 2012 focusing on building distribution, says Director Scott Nichols, and this year the company is working on its retailer relationships.
Verlasso recently placed its salmon in Central Market in Texas and it has also introduced smoked salmon under a joint venture with Acme Smoked Fish Corp. of Brooklyn, N.Y. The smoked product is sold under Acme’s Blue Hill Bay label and is just now coming onto the market.
The company likes to tell the story of how its salmon is raised, and uses gill tags with QR codes — two per fillet — so both the retailer or restaurateur and the customer can connect with the fish. There is a short interview with the farm manager that can be accessed from the tag, said Nichols.
Click here to read the full story that ran in the May issue of SeaFood Business >
