"farm raised" news and stories

When I was in Seattle last weekend, I couldn't help but notice a popular (and clever!) bumper sticker all over the city: "Farm-Raised Salmon Dyed for You."

Meanwhile, an interesting article in the New York Times dropped some remarkable facts about recent trends in smoked salmon:

• Many -- nay, most -- major retailers on both coasts and in the Midwest (Wegmans and Costco included) buy their smoked salmon from one source: Brooklyn's Acme Smoked Fish.

• Whereas the industry shifted from nearly exclusive use of wild salmon in the 1980s to farm-raised salmon in the 1990s, recent bad press about farm-raised salmon -- like the aforementioned bumper sticker -- has caused the industry to swing back towards wild salmon.
• Smoked salmon has undergone a remarkable shift of late: unlike most everything else, smoked salmon is less salty than ever before. 

Still to be determined is how the Pacific Northwest wry bumper sticker industry will respond.