Lapland restaurant swaps salmon soup for locally caught zander

A restaurant in Ylitornio has replaced Norwegian salmon with locally caught zander, Yle reports. Aavasaksan Huippu, a restaurant at Aavasaksa, now serves zander soup instead of the traditional salmon version.

The restaurant has removed both Norwegian farmed salmon and rainbow trout from its menu. It is owned by a subsidiary of the municipality of Ylitornio, and its management says the decision is intended to support local fisheries and withdraw support from harmful fish production.

The zander is sourced from nearby Lake Miekojärvi. Josefi Kauppila, Ylitornio’s vitality coordinator who is currently managing the restaurant, said the choice was intended to support the local economy and bring revenue to the region.

She said the change had prompted questions and discussions among customers about food production, but that the feedback had been positive. The restaurant also hopes to distinguish itself as tourism grows in the Aavasaksa region.

Matti Ovaska, WWF Finland’s senior fisheries expert, described the decision as excellent and exemplary. He said Norwegian salmon had long dominated Finland’s fish market, leaving many good domestic alternatives overlooked.

Ovaska said Norwegian salmon farms have high levels of parasites that can spread to wild fish stocks and, in the worst cases, kill wild salmon.

WWF has long recommended eating locally abundant fish species such as zander, pike, perch, Baltic herring and vendace. Ovaska said eating more domestic fish would be better from an ecological perspective, although complete domestic sourcing was not necessarily the goal.

He said the scale and balance of fish consumption in Finland needed to change. Finnish consumption is concentrated on farmed fish, while tuna has long been the most consumed wild fish in national statistics.

Ovaska added that eating more cyprinid fish, such as roach, could improve the ecology of Finland’s inland waters. Their populations have grown considerably in recent decades because of warmer and more eutrophic lake waters, as well as reduced fishing.

However, Timo Lappi, chief executive of the Finnish Hospitality Association MaRa, said domestic or ethically produced food was considerably more expensive than imported food. He said most Finns would like to eat more food produced in Finland, but were not willing to pay more for it.

Food raw material prices have risen by more than 30 percent in just over six years, Lappi said. He added that Finland’s inland waters contain excellent fish, but there are too few fishers. As a result, supplies of inland fish are less reliable than those of Norwegian farmed salmon.

Aavasaksan Huippu has not faced the same problems with price or supply. Kauppila said zander was not significantly more expensive than salmon, and that its availability could be even better because she knows the fisher personally.