Aquaculture Welfare

Farmed Salmon Welfare Benchmarking 2026

Welfare benchmarking enables comparison between salmon farms and drives improvement through transparency and competitive accountability.

Key Facts

Norway's fish welfare index covers lice loads, mortality, and treatment frequency
Scotland is developing a mandatory welfare benchmarking framework for 2027
Operational welfare indicators (OWIs) allow real-time welfare assessment
Consumer-facing welfare labels for salmon are emerging in Norwegian supermarkets
Cross-industry data sharing enables sector-wide welfare improvement benchmarking

Welfare Considerations

Welfare benchmarking makes salmon welfare visible, comparable, and improvable. Farms that perform poorly on welfare indicators face accountability - and those that perform well can be rewarded through market premiums and certification.

What You Can Do

Choose salmon from farms with published welfare benchmark scores
Support mandatory welfare reporting requirements for salmon farms
Advocate for consumer-accessible welfare labelling on farmed salmon products