04/23/2003

By JIM KLOCKOW / KING5.com

SEATTLE - People pay more for pink.

That's the gist of a lawsuit filed in King County, Wash. Wednesday alleging that three Northwest grocery store chains illegally fail to disclose that their farm-raised salmon is artificially colored.

"It's unfair. It's deceptive and it's against the law," said Paul Kampmeier, an attorney with Smith & Lowney.

Kampmeier's firm is suing Boise-based Albertsons, Safeway and The Kroger Company - parent of QFC and Fred Meyer - on behalf of five people who say they would not have paid as high a price or would not have purchased farm-raised salmon had it not been bright pink or red. The suit seeks damages going back to 1999.

Farmer can pick the color they want their salmon to be by controlling the carotenoids in the fish feed.

A spokesman for Kroger asked to comment on the suit read a prepared statement from the company.

"While we have not yet received a copy of the lawsuit, we believe the farm raised salmon sold in our stores is nutritious and wholesome and fully complies with all federal labeling guidelines," said Gary Rhodes.

An Albertson's spokesman said since the company had not yet seen the complaint it could not comment.

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KING 5 News' Robert Mak reports

The flesh of wild salmon is pink because they eat krill and small fish containing carotenoids, a large family of compounds that includes carotene, which give carrots their color.

But since farm-raised salmon aren't on the same diet, fish farmers include astaxanthin and canthaxanthin, both also carotenoids.

Fish farmers can then control the color of the salmon by altering the amount of the compounds in the feed.

The lawsuits don't allege that anyone was physically harmed by the practice of coloring the fish. In fact, both astaxanthin and canthaxanthin are sold as dietary supplement for either their powerful antioxidant value or, in the case of canthaxanthin, as a tanning pill.

Canthaxathin is also used in other types of animal feed to give brighter color to egg yolks and some poultry products.

Federal regulations say that if an additive is used to give color to a food, it must be disclosed, Kampmeier said.

Earlier this year, however, the European Union limited permitted levels the substance allowed to be used in feed after research suggested that a build up of pigments can damage the retina.

In response to the lawsuits filed Wednesday, the BC Salmon Farmers Association declined to comment on the lawsuit, but issued a statement saying that astaxanthin is the pigment that is primarily responsible for the red color in wild salmon, which is why it is used to bring that color out in farmed fish.

Salmon farming has come under attack in recent years by some environmentalists, commercial fisherman and biologists, who contend the operations are little more than giant feedlots in the sea.

The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform in British Columbia last year organized a restaurant and retail boycott of farmed salmon, arguing that the fish-farming practices were environmentally unsound; that farmed Atlantic salmon compete unfairly with wild fish; and that the end product was neither as tasty or as healthy for consumers as free-swimming salmon.

Salmon farms allow consumers to get the fish fresh year-round at inexpensive prices.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.