Off the hook?
news.scotsman.com
IT IS eight in the morning on a fish-farm in the West Highlands. A team of men in bright yellow oilskins and wellies prepares to winch a salmon cage out of the water.
One side of the cage is lifted up, forcing hundreds of salmon to the lower side of the cage. A team is waiting to lift the fish out of the water and place them carefully in boxes to avoid bruising. The boxes are then loaded onto a refrigerated lorry and driven to Fort William.
After arriving at the plant, the fish are placed on a conveyor belt, sorted for size and filleted. The vast majority of the fish are ready to be sold to fishmongers, supermarkets and restaurants, and it is still not midday.
The salmon heading for Britain’s supermarkets are loaded onto lorries and will be arranged on the shelves by eight o’clock the next morning.
Fish heading further afield are driven to airports such as Glasgow Prestwick, to be flown to North America. Within 48 hours a Scottish salmon can have gone from the waters of the West Highlands to a plate in a swanky New York restaurant.
In the past three years, exports of Scottish salmon to the USA have almost trebled - from less than 4,000 tonnes in 2001 to 11,000 tonnes last year. Just under a 10th of all the salmon exported from Scotland goes to the United States.
But last week the king of fish found itself at the centre of a damaging new health scare - one that threatens to kill the US market, rock the Highland economy and damage Scotland’s international reputation as a producer of luxury goods.
A $2.5m (£1.36m) study by scientists in the US condemned the clean and natural image of the product by claiming that farmed salmon is full of toxins, with Scottish salmon, along with that of the Faroe Islands, being the worst offender.
The researchers found levels of 14 polluting toxins, including dieldrin, lindane, dioxins and PCBs, all of which are known as organochlorines, which have the potential to trigger cancer in humans. As a result they recommended that only a quarter of a serving of farmed Scottish salmon should be eaten per month - amounting to just three servings a year.
The investigation, which was published on Thursday in the magazine Science, sent shock waves through the Scottish salmon industry. But as the days passed, it became clear that there were key failings in the study - to the point where its conclusions were invalid. As one fish industry expert said: "It turns out there is rather less to this research than meets the eye."
The salmon industry is now engaged in a furious fight to repair its battered reputation. The findings have been strongly rebutted, and Britain’s food watchdog, the Food Standards Agency, insists the product is safe to eat.
They point out that the levels of the toxins are no higher in the farmed salmon than they are in the rest of the environment or in other foodstuffs, such as dairy products or beef.
Even in the US, experts are beginning to distance themselves from the research. Charles Santerre, associate professor of foods and nutrition at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, said: "These were eminent scientists, and their basic research and methodology were excellent - this is a valuable contribution to the debate.
"But the study came to the wrong conclusions because they did not compare the levels of the toxins found to the safety levels recommended by the World Health Organisation or the Food and Drink Administration. They also failed to balance the risk from the toxins with the risks of removing salmon from your diet, which are much greater in terms of dangers to the heart and removal of a source of protein.
These levels of toxins are well within the safe guideline levels
"What many people are forgetting is that there is a world of difference in risk between something that is toxic in high doses and tiny trace amounts of that substance. Coffee contains minute amounts of carcinogens, but they are so small that they will not harm you. Farmed salmon is delicious and nutritious and a vital part of our diet."
Scientists believe that the tiny fish used to make fish feed, which are caught in the polluted waters of northern Europe and which have been affected by the industrial age, are passing on their toxins to the farmed salmon.
Ironically, it is the very factor that makes ‘oily’ fish such as salmon, herring and mackerel healthy that helps them retain the toxins. The ‘Omega-3’ oil in fatty fish is believed to be good for the heart. Doctors in Orkney have advised patients at risk of heart conditions to eat locally produced herring at least twice a week.
The toxins, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), are retained in the fat in animals and foods. Because the flesh of salmon, herring and mackerel contains fat, especially near the skin, the toxins are present in the fish oil.
However, Dr John Webster, technical consultant for Scottish Quality Salmon, said: "There are toxins in all kinds of foods. They are a result of the industrial age we live in. These levels of toxins are well within the safe guideline levels. If you wanted to avoid toxins altogether, you would have to cut out dairy products and beef. If they contain fat, then the fat absorbs the toxins."
Cautious customers are advised that the simplest way to minimise the risk is to remove the skin and cook the salmon well. Most of the toxins are concentrated near to the skin, and cooking is known to reduce their level.
But the real damage may be done to the Scottish economy. The one saving grace of the episode is that the scare did not take place in the weeks before Christmas, when Britons guzzle vast quantities of salmon, both fresh and smoked.
Fish-farming keeps communities alive and even schools open
Cheap salmon has transformed British dinner-times, where the once-luxury food has become a commonplace alternative to meat in the wake of fears over BSE and cholesterol.
In 1990, a pound of salmon cost £2.50 in British fish markets - by 1999 that had fallen to £1.25 per pound. The slump even led to salmon being proposed as a fish-supper alternative to dwindling stocks of cod and haddock. Britons munch their way through 90,000 tonnes of Scottish salmon each year.
But the threat to the industry should not be underestimated. Foreign suppliers, such as the Chileans and Norwegians, are ready to take a bigger share of the market after the Science magazine study said their produce was cleaner than Scottish salmon.
The Scottish salmon farming industry is valued at £300m and is estimated to be worth more to the Scottish economy than the Highland beef and lamb industries combined, accounting for 40% of all Scottish food exports. However, the business is still dwarfed by the whisky industry, which earns £2bn per year.
While the actual number of jobs created by salmon farming seems minute compared to the old heavy industries of the Central Belt or the financial services industries of Glasgow and Edinburgh, it is the location of the jobs that makes them crucial to the Scottish economy.
Of the 6,500 jobs created by the industry, 4,700 live in some of Scotland’s remotest communities in the Highlands and Islands. The decline of other traditional industries, such as trawling and tweed, means that communities rely on the farms, which give work to small teams of five or six men.
Iain Macleod, originally from Skye, makes his living on Scotland’s most famous loch. At eight o’clock each morning, either himself or one of his team checks the salmon cages on Loch Ness and begins feeding the fish.
He said: "Fish-farming is keeping communities alive - it’s even keeping schools on the west coast open. It is an ideal job for young men, in areas where all the men’s jobs have gone. It means they don’t have to leave and they can bring up families in their own areas."
While the industry may argue, with some justification, that the levels of toxins in its food are far below the recommended levels, even friends of the industry admit that growers will have to rethink their sources of salmon feed. Environmentalists believe the industry should switch to cleaner feeds, and some fish producers are already introducing feeds containing vegetable oil.
Dr Paul Johnston, of Greenpeace Research Laboratories at Exeter University, said: "It is a simple case of ‘garbage-in garbage-out’. The Scottish industry has to deal with the issue of where it is getting its feed from and what it is putting into the food chain. For its own good, it should accept the need for an inquiry. There is no point in trying to pretend that everything is fine when there are clearly worries."
If the industry believes that feeds based on vegetable oils may get it the same results without the toxins then the near future will see a massive switch from fish-based feeds to those based on vegetable oils.
Supporters of the industry also point out that levels of PCBs and similar toxins are declining in the environment, and that future tests will see their levels decline.
Fish-farming had been seen as cleaning up its act after accepting a ban on a number of chemicals and reducing pollution from throwing too many feeding pellets into cages. Insiders worry that another scare may be a scare too far.
Scottish salmon is anxious to avoid the fate that befell the Austrian wine industry in 1985, when tests revealed that some wine contained diethylene glycol, a substance related to anti-freeze, which horrified consumers and led to the collapse of the industry. The nightmare would see the consumer opt for foreign fish.
Dr David Marshall, senior lecturer in marketing at Edinburgh University’s Department of Business Studies, believes that the initial signs do not point to a collapse in the salmon market.
He said: "What has been important has been the swift reaction of the Food Standards Agency to this. It has been very robust and very quick to defend the reputation of Scottish salmon. It seems to have gone about it the right way. The real test will be how much salmon is left on the supermarket shelves by next week."
A spokesman for Britain’s largest supermarket company, Tesco, said the company had noticed no decline in the amount of salmon being bought.
He said: "We are not noticing any difference. We are not taking it off the shelves. We accept the guidance of the FSA that the salmon is safe."
Furthermore, Marshall believes that Scotland’s reputation for quality produce is not in jeopardy.
He said: "Even if this episode damages the reputation of Scottish salmon, which I’m not convinced it will, I believe that other Scottish companies are distanced enough from salmon that it will not affect them. The whole notion of Scotland the Brand and the selling of Scotland has not just been based on a single product. I can’t see specialist producers being affected by this. I think it would take more than this to dent the reputation of Scotland as a whole."
But another danger is lurking for the Scottish salmon industry, which is fighting to compete against cheaper Chilean and Norwegian fish. Already half of Tesco’s salmon comes from Norway rather than Scotland, where huge salmon farms produce fish more cheaply than the Scots, and cheap labour costs in Chile mean that fish can be flown into Scotland and still retail for cheaper than the local product.
Scotland’s salmon farmers may survive the worries of scientists, but a price squeeze is a much more chilling prospect.
PCBs: A TOXIC LEGACY
FIRST produced in the 1930s, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), were used as flame retardants and as electrical insulators in transformers, capacitors, and other electrical equipment. Their use spread until they were found in fridges, typewriters, power saws, cereal boxes, varnishes, waterproofing materials, and even bread wrappers.
The very characteristic of the PCBs that made them wonderful for use in manufacturing made them a problem in the environment. They do not degrade nor rot and they can be accumulated in the fatty tissues of animals once the PCBs are released into the environment.
Effects in the environment include the death of animals, birds, or fish, and death or low growth rate in plants. Chronic effects from PCBs may include shortened lifespan, reproductive problems, lower fertility, and changes in appearance or behaviour.
During the mid-1960s some environmental scientists began seeing an increase of PCBs in animal tissues. By the end of the 1970s, their manufacture and use had been banned.
All people in industrial countries have some PCBs in their bodies as a legacy of the time when they were in widespread use. However, in recent years some forms of bacteria have been found which feed on PCBs and which may be able to dispose of them. |
