Chilean salmon is antibiotic-free
José Miguel Burgos, director of the Service of Fisheries and Aquaculture (Sernapesca), made the assertion following a report by Reuters which claimed that Costco would be replacing Chilean salmon with Norwegian alternatives, due to an alleged overuse of antibiotics in Chile.
He even sent a message to the world's consumers: “They can be very assured that Chilean salmon meets the requirements of each and every one of their markets".
He commented that in Chile there is a "very strong" control programme, which involves more than 80,000 analyses per year from salmon cages, in order to test for any antibiotic residues.
Burgos stressed that the outcome of these inspections, prior to harvest, "is less than 0.1% positive", a claim backed by the very low rejection rate of Chilean salmon products.
Artificial campaign Meanwhile, the general manager of SalmonChile, Felipe Manterola, agreed with Burgos that Costco's decision is largely based on economic considerations.
According to the local newspaper El Llanquihue, he said that: "Costco accepted only a part of all Norwegian imports, oriented to create an organic product line of Norwegian origin. This, in turn, was highly motivated by the advantageous exchange rate that Norway has at the moment, allowing them to enter in the United States in more competitive terms".
Manterola said Chile has the "most robust detection systems for substances, implemented by Sernapesca and official certification laboratories”, adding that “there is no trace (of antibiotics) in any product. Therefore, this whole campaign is artificial".
