Creative Salmon Company Ltd

World Class Chinook Salmon Raised on Canada’s West Coast
If you want fresh, you’ve come to the right place. Creative Salmon is proud to raise organic Pacific Chinook (King) salmon in the waters of Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Fresh. Organic. Creative.

BC Salmon, raised right here.
Based on the west coast of British Columbia’s iconic Vancouver Island, Creative Salmon is Canada’s only organic Chinook (King) Salmon producer — a species native to our Pacific waters.

Organic
We’re the first salmon farming company in North America to achieve Canadian Organic Aquaculture Standard certification.

Certified organic means:
NO GMOs
NO antibiotics
Natural diet sourced from FAO-compliant fisheries
Low-density environment (more than twice the room for fish to move and grow than a conventional farm environment)

A delicious, healthy ingredient
Pacific Chinook is renowned for its pleasing red colour, firm flesh, delicate texture, and big flavour. Every bite is packed with protein and essential Omega 3s.

Dependable freshness
From the shimmering, pristine waters of Canada’s west coast to you in as little as 48 hours. Vertically-integrated production and frequent harvests (up to three times a week, 52 weeks a year) means consistently getting our best.

We are different

Creative Salmon originally followed more traditional and widely-used salmon farming techniques. But in 1995 we started doing things differently.

Creative Salmon started trialing pens without antibiotics. The effort proved successful and so the shift away from antibiotics continued. We have not treated our market fish with antibiotics since 2001. Around 1995 the company also started its Environmental Monitoring Program, which helped set the tempo for our overall environmental accountability.

Creative Salmon’s long-time commitment to natural practices and dedication to quality achieved a new level of recognition in December 2013 when the company achieved organic certification under the standard set out by the Canadian General Standards Board.

Years of effort pursuing natural, organic processes helped Creative become the first salmon farming company in North American to achieve Canadian organic certification.

At Creative Salmon, we operate our own brood stock program. Eggs, fry and smolts are raised at our own hatchery, Sea Spring, located about 4.5 hours from Tofino on the east coast of Vancouver Island. The fish spend 7 to 12 months in the hatchery. When they are ready, the smolts are carefully transported to our ocean pens.

It takes about another 16 months for the salmon to reach harvest size. Depending on the season and demand, we harvest our fish up to two or three times a week.

The fish are pumped aboard a harvest vessel, humanely stunned, and chilled in circulating slush ice and taken to the organically certified processing plant right on the dock in Tofino (about an hour by boat).

The primary processing happens right there, in a government certified plant owned and operated by Lions Gate Fisheries. A skilled crew processes the fish and grades them for quality and size, all by hand, and then packs them on ice.

Temperature controlled trucks leave Tofino in the afternoon of every processing day and reach the BC mainland by evening. The fish are unloaded early the following morning at Lions Gate Fisheries’ organically certified Delta facility, and from there they are distributed to our customers around the world.

Corporate Values & Responsibility
Creative Salmon is proud to raise organic Pacific Chinook (King) salmon in the waters of Clayoquot Sound in the traditional territory of the Tla‑o‑qui‑aht First Nation.

Vertical integration — from egg to plate — is a big part of Creative’s success. We produce our own broodstock and smolts, raise and harvest the fish, and process them in a plant located right on the dock in Tofino.

Commitment to Tla‑o‑qui‑aht First Nation
Creative Salmon operates in the traditional territory of the Tla‑o‑qui‑aht First Nation.

In July 2014, after two decades of relationship building and cooperative effort, Creative finalized a protocol agreement which established guiding principles for our Chinook salmon farming operations within the Haahuulthii (traditional territory) of the Tla‑o‑qui‑aht Hawiih (Chiefs) near Tofino, BC.

Environmental Accountability
It’s possible for a salmon farm to be environmentally responsible AND operate on a sustainable scale. At Creative Salmon, we consider the environment in everything we do, and we make these choices even though it means there is extra work and costs involved.

Environmental Monitoring & Responsible Practices
Years ago, Creative Salmon was the first salmon farmer on Canada’s West Coast to implement an environmental-monitoring plan, even before it was mandated by government. In fact, one of our farm sites was selected as an intensive research site to help develop new performance-based standards for the management of salmon farms in BC.

We monitor our fish through underwater cameras – and we were one of the first companies to do so. Every fish pen is monitored during every meal by skilled staff. This ensures that feed use is optimized and the fish are fed properly.

We follow a site fallowing plan to minimize our environmental impact, meaning that we only operate four of our six farm sites at any one time. This allows us to rotate between sites and to fallow them for up to several years. Even active sites have fallow periods of up to 3 or 4 months between stockings. The fallowing plan is guided by the results of our environmental monitoring program as well as site conditions, and allows the sea floor to return to its natural condition.

We clean and maintain our sites without using any harsh chemicals or net antifoulants. We clean our nets by power washing them with sea water, or by exposing them to natural ultraviolet (i.e., sunshine!).

Contributing to Our Communities
At Creative Salmon, we believe that being a local business means playing an integral part in the communities that surround us. We participate in events and activities in and around Clayoquot Sound – sponsoring local teams, supporting school activities, cooking salmon for special events, and giving financial support to local agencies.

Creative is also committed to making it easy for local people – from the communities of Tofino, Ucluelet, Esowista, Ty‑Histanis and Opitsaht – to work for us. We practice day-shifting, bringing staff to and from the farm sites every day, rather than having them live there for days at a time, so that they can be with their families every evening and have a more “regular” schedule.

CONTACT US:
Creative Salmon Co. LTD.
PO Box 265
612 Campbell Street
Tofino, BC
V0R 2Z0
Phone 250.725.2884
Fax 250.725.2885
info@creativesalmon.com