female farm worker at sea site

Loch Duart to extend protection of its award-winning salmon into North America

Graeme Thomsonblog

Forensic analysis ensures salmon farmer can verify traceability of its fish for North American supply chain.

Loch Duart announces that it is making significant further investment to ensure the traceability of its world-renowned salmon as it takes the food fraud fight to North America.

The North West Scotland based salmon farming business has been working in the UK with forensic food analysis experts, Oritain, for two years, deploying their pioneering ability to trace fresh salmon samples back to the individual farm and waters where the fish were raised. Now Loch Duart is to expand its use of Oritain’s scientific traceability to ensure that when diners in North America are promised genuine Loch Duart salmon, that’s what they are served.

Loch Duart has been raising its award-winning salmon in the same, low-impact, environmentally sensitive way for decades. Their low-energy sites in sheltered locations, facilitate natural approaches including the successful use of cleaner fish and minimal fish handling. They also have bespoke, high-marine content fish feed, unique to Loch Duart, which helps to give their salmon its sought-after taste and texture.

Andy Bing, Loch Duart’s Sales Director, said:

“At Loch Duart we’re proud of our 20-year legacy, rearing extraordinary salmon, asked for by name around the world. Oritain can forensically identify the exact location of any fresh salmon sample they test and this has proven to be a highly effective deterrent for food fraudsters in the UK since we started working with Oritain in 2017. That’s why we’re now extending the availability of this analysis into North America.

“It’s another way we can reassure our customers in the US and Canada, that we are actively protecting the Loch Duart brand. Now, when diners choose our delicious tasting Loch Duart salmon, we can prove its unique origins.”

A global leader in using forensic science to determine food, fibre and pharmaceutical provenance, Oritain protects the reputations of its customers by forensically tracing the actual products, not packaging or labels. Their approach proves that ‘nature gives everything specific markers that are unique to its origin’.

Download the full press release here.