Most institutional buyers have never asked what veterinary drugs were used in the salmon they serve, and most suppliers have never been asked. These five questions are written so you can forward them as they are, under your own name. Reading the reply takes about ten minutes.
What you’ll get:
Open net pens hold tens or hundreds of thousands of fish in coastal water, where disease and parasites spread freely. Treating that disease takes drugs: Chile’s salmon industry, the largest supplier to the U.S., used 351 tons of antimicrobials in 2024, nearly all of it during ocean grow-out.¹ ²
Verification is thin on this side. The U.S. tests roughly 0.1% of imported sea animal products for drug residues, and screens for three of the fourteen compounds the EU and Japan look for.³
Certification audits a farm’s records and management systems. It does not test the fish you bought.
An estimated 96% of antibiotics used in aquaculture belong to classes the WHO rates as important for human medicine.⁴
The Aquaculture Accountability Project researches industrial aquaculture and works with institutional buyers on sourcing decisions. We don’t sell anything.