RSPCA Assured is the RSPCA’s ethical food label dedicated to farm animal welfare. It is a charity and operates totally independently from the food and farming sectors. Their standards are higher than other UK farm assurance schemes in many key welfare areas and recognised by the government as such.

With fish health and welfare at the heart of successful Scottish salmon farming around 70 per cent of Scottish salmon are certified to the RSPCA Farm Assured scheme – a higher percentage than any other UK farming sector. The remaining salmon are reared to the same high welfare standards under other accreditation schemes.

On RSPCA Assured salmon farms, animals must be given enough space to move around, a good diet, be handled carefully to minimise stress and be able exhibit their natural behaviours.

It means that when you see the RSPCA Assured label on fish packaging or on menus you know the farms, and every stage of the animals’ lives, have been assessed to RSPCA animal welfare standards.

Scottish salmon farmers rear their fish to the highest standards, on the basis that fish in their care are capable of feeling pain. That is an underlying reason why the sector takes its welfare responsibility so seriously.

Farm pens in Scotland are stocked at some of the lowest farming densities of all salmon farming countries, at a maximum of 2% and production standards ensure that fish have plenty of room to swim and shoal in clean, oxygen-rich water.

For more information about RSPCA Assured and salmon farming click here.