70% of the world’s salmon comes from farms and their meat should be gray. The industry has been making sure you don’t notice for decades

In the heart of Tjuvholmen, a small neighborhood located on an even smaller peninsula that runs from Aker Brygge towards the Oslo Fjord, lies The Salmon. It is a restaurant, yes; but above all, it is an interpretation center for Norwegian salmon.

There, just before enjoying two dozen different preparations, facilitators explain in detail “the entire salmon process – from smoking to export” and explain to diners “the historical development of salmon farming.”

And it is logical. 70% of the salmon consumed in the world comes from aquaculture. Only in the North Atlantic, farms produced more than three million of metric tons in 2025 and Norway is (by far) the main producer. They explain all this in The Salmon; What they don’t explain is the color.

Le Salmon, 1866–1869, by Édouard Manet

The color? Salmon, in the cultural imagination of the entire world, has a very specific color: a pinkish-orange which, in short, is what we have been calling salmon color. The curious thing is that, under normal conditions, the meat of farmed salmon would be pale gray or whitish.

And the reason is very simple: the characteristic color of wild salmon depends on the diet. They are big fans of krill, shrimp and other crustaceans which, in turn, feed on microalgae that produce astaxanthin. That’s what gives them the color.

Instead, farmed salmon are fed feed composed of fishmeal, oil, soy, corn gluten and other poultry by-products. None of them have astaxanthin naturally and, therefore, they could not acquire their iconic color.

And that, of course, is a problem. Early farmed salmon producers realized that color was difficult to manage. It is true that there is a wild salmon native to Alaska that does not naturally fix astaxanthin in its meat and is sold as a gourmet product. But that is one thing and trying to convince millions of people that this farmed pale salmon is the same (or better) than the wild one is another.

Since the 1980s, researchers and producers got to work, discovered the origin of the problem and introduced chemically synthesized astaxanthin into the food chain of farmed salmon. It’s not cheap: these additives represent between 6 and 20% of the cost total feed. But it is necessary.

And, by the way, they “tint” them, like the Astaxanthin is a powerful antioxidantfish improve liver function, immune response, fertility and resistance to oxidative stress.

And why should we care about all this? Spain is the second largest consumer of fish and seafood in the EU; Salmon, in fact, is one of the most consumed species. The color of salmon is something well known (and completely safe), but it is not something that is usually advertised: the fear of growing distrust towards farmed fish is always there.

One of the great food paradoxes of our time. Producers, in fact, have been saying for years that they would lower the amount of astaxanthin if consumers agreed to buy paler salmon. But that doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen: as we’ve seen time and time again, food depends critically on fashions and trends. this pink is in fashion.

Image | Katja Ano

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