Source · fishery

Norwegian salmon farm

Hardangerfjord, NO

Placeholder fishery entry — Norwegian salmon farms in the cold Atlantic fjords produce most of the sushi-grade salmon on the global market. Pens are deep, water is cold (around 8°C), and fish are individually-machine-graded before flash-freezing for sushi or chilling for cure. The Norwegian Seafood Council branded salmon to the Japanese sushi market in the 1980s; before then, raw salmon in Japan was almost unknown.

A reminder that some of our food traditions are surprisingly modern: salmon nigiri was effectively invented in the 1990s by Norwegian fisheries marketing into the Japanese sushi industry. The fish is now ubiquitous; the practice is younger than the photocopier.