B & E Meats and Seafood Now First to Carry Ōra King Farmed Salmon in Seattle Area

For years now, it has become evident that the supply of wild-caught salmon is diminishing at alarming levels, both locally (in the Puget Sound area where B & E Meats and Seafood is located) and around the world. Farmed salmon arrived as a viable solution to meet the demand of a dwindling supply, but with that solution came numerous problems related to the rearing of salmon in confined pens.

Although several companies around the world have overcome significant challenges to raise a high-quality farmed salmon product, a negative stigma of “farmed” salmon persists, confounding the public about whether or not to buy farmed salmon at all. It is now being recognized that aquaculture is one of the most sustainable ways possible to produce animal protein.

To meet the demand for fresh salmon, co-owners Jeff Green and Steve Dunaychuk of B & E Meats and Seafood, along with their expert fish mongers and butchers, Phil Bishop, Gordy Maggs, Cabe Basilius, Kyle Layos, Steviss Webb and Shaun Olver, scoured the globe to find what they believe is the best farmed King Salmon source in the world—Ōra King.

"We want to have the freshest salmon available year-round and what that means for us is fresh, wild salmon when in season, and a pristine fresh, farmed salmon in the off season," says Green.

Dunhaychuk adds, “It's an education process because some of our customers will straight out reject farmed fish due, in part, to the bad wrap some salmon farms have given the industry. Once customers understand that Ōra King salmon, farm raised in New Zealand, are cared for in a far superior and humane way than their counterparts, there is no doubt left about serving them. The quality control is exceptional and, because of the superior marbling, it is very tasty too." The highly prized King salmon is a special and very rare species of salmon, making up less than .5-percent of the world’s salmon population. Ōra King is a unique breed of this rare species, the result of a breeding program dating back to 1994.

"We are fortunate to be in Seattle where salmon naturally live in our waters, but we are also close to Alaska where salmon is delivered fresh, along with a majority of other fish species, and then re-distributed to the rest of the United States.,” Green says. “What that means for us is that B & E has access to fresh fish a day or two after it’s been wild caught and sometimes even within a few hours.”

King Salmon eggs destined to produce Ōra King are nurtured in the crystal waters flowing from Te Waikoropupu Springs at the hatchery in Takaka. The juvenile salmon are raised in the springs for seven months before being transported to the Marlborough Sounds. The sounds provide a strong current for the fish to swim against for another 16-20 months, thus emulating the lifecycle of the wild King Salmon. The waters of this region have been verified as some of the clearest in the world, an ideal beginning to the life cycle for Ōra King salmon, according to company officials.

"Ōra King stood out to us because of the ratio of fish to water (2-percent fish to 98-percent water), the balanced diet that the salmon are fed and the proper handling of the fish from a tiny egg, right down to their humane husbandry practices,” Dunaychuk says.

Ōra King farms are isolated in the Marlborough Sounds of New Zealand, where traditional husbandry techniques are used to raise high-quality salmon in a healthy way. The flavor profile of Ōra King salmon is balanced and elegant, while the high oil content naturally present in the Ōra King salmon makes it hard to overcook, according to company officials. The Ōra King salmon breed is known for it’s striking marbled fat lines within the bright orange flesh, instantly drawing comparison to Wagyu beef.