GM salmon hits shelves in Canada – but people may not know they're buying it

AquaBounty salmon was approved for sale in Canada in 2016, paving the way for it to become the first genetically engineered animal to enter the food supply

Canadian supermarkets have become the first in the world to stock genetically modified fish, and about five tonnes of GM salmon have been sold in the country in recent months.

The sales figure was revealed in the most recent earnings report of the US-based AquaBounty Technologies, whose hybrid Atlantic salmon - which contains a gene from a Chinook salmon and a gene from the ocean pout - has been at the heart of a heated debate over transgenic animals as food.