Are any of our readers salmon lovers? With tasty dishes like baked or fried salmon, it’s hard not to be! If that’s the case for you, what we’re about to say next might be of special interest to you.
The salmon you’ve got on your plate most likely found its way to you all the way from Alaska. In fact, Alaska exports salmon to over a hundred countries across the globe. China, followed by Europe, Japan, and Canada are the state’s largest export markets.
The seafood industry in Alaska is the state’s leading export by far. More than 9,000 vessels are homeported in Alaska and transported to 87 large shoreside processing plants. And get this… their seafood industry has averaged an export value of $3.3 billion over the past decade! More specifically, $313 million of that came from salmon alone!
In order to supply the market’s high demand for seafood, Alaska has employed over 60,000 people who are responsible for catching, transporting, processing, and exporting the food. In 2019, an estimated 32.2 million salmons were caught, valued at over $100 million and ranking second for volume at 14% of total seafood exports. So, all this to say, the chances of that salmon on your plate being exported from Alaska are pretty high!
