Fresh and canned salmon donated to local food banks

120,000 lbs

in 2020

The equivalent of 500,000 meals

Debbie Miller, Manager of the Campbell River Foodbank, safely receives a pallet of salmon fillets donated by Mowi Canada West.

Giving Back to Communities

In 2020, Cermaq Canada and Grieg Seafood BC donated 60,000 pounds of salmon (contents of 120,000 cans) to Food Banks Canada’s national hamper distribution initiative to assist with the demands on food banks due to the ongoing pandemic.

In April, salmon farmers partnered with Food Banks BC to produce and distribute 86,000 cans of salmon across the province. The donation was so well received that Food Banks Canada approached BCSFA to partner for a national donation of salmon to make further cans.

“When we saw the BC salmon farmers’ generous donation to Food Banks BC in April, we reached out to BCSFA to see if we could work together on a national project,” says Chris Hatch, Chief Executive officer for Food Banks Canada. “Protein donations are hard to come by, especially since COVID-19, where protein has become short in supply. Shelf-stable healthy protein is highly desired by food banks, but often the least donated because it’s expensive.”

Before the pandemic, Canadians visited food banks nearly 1.1 million times a month across the nation, and an increased demand is expected to last beyond the pandemic as the economy slowly bounces back.

“We knew we had to find a way to make something happen, so we would like to thank both Grieg and Cermaq for stepping up and filling this need,” says John Paul Fraser, Executive Director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association. “Canned salmon isn’t a product we normally produce, so this is truly a tailor-made product for food banks.”

The pandemic has seen food banks and other businesses shift towards pre-packaged, shelf-stable foods that require less volunteer or client handling of products.

This national BC salmon farmers’ donation includes:

  • 60,000lbs of Atlantic salmon (or contents of approx. 120,000 cans): Cermaq and Grieg each donated 30,000 lbs of fresh Atlantic salmon, which has been processed and canned by St. Jean’s Cannery & Smokehouse in Nanaimo. This will produce 120,000 cans to Food Banks Canada to be added to hampers in Toronto, ON and distributed throughout the country.
  • Transportation: Aquatrans Distributors Inc. and Seaspan Ferries Corp are donating their costs to transport the product within BC.
  • The processing and canning costs are covered in part via an investment through the Government of Canada’s Local Food Infrastructure Fund emergency funding.


Together, with BC salmon farmers’ previous donations to Food Banks BC, this brings total salmon donations equivalent to over half a million meals to Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic - almost 120,000 lbs donated to date.