Aquaculture

Commercial Salmon Welfare Benchmarking

Benchmarking salmon welfare across farms enables identification of best practices and drives sector-wide improvement.

Key Facts

The Salmon Welfare Index covers multiple welfare domains with standardized protocols
Benchmarking reveals wide variation in welfare outcomes between farms
Top-performing farms demonstrate that high welfare and productivity are compatible
Publicly available benchmarking data enables consumer and buyer decisions

Welfare Considerations

Without cross-farm welfare benchmarking, welfare improvement is ad hoc and best practices are not identified and propagated. Standardized welfare indices enable comparison of farms, identification of outliers in both directions, and evidence that high welfare is achievable. Public availability of benchmarking data creates accountability and enables informed purchasing. Competitive benchmarking has driven rapid improvement in other sectors.

What You Can Do

Support salmon from farms participating in welfare benchmarking programs
Advocate for transparency in salmon welfare outcome data
Choose salmon certified to schemes with published welfare benchmarks
Back development of welfare benchmarking infrastructure for aquaculture