VOA新闻杂志2025--US Company Gives Over 18,000 Kilograms of Salmon to Food Bank

US Company Gives Over 18,000 Kilograms of Salmon¹ to Food Bank

A New York food bank was offered a large donation of fresh fish last month — but the gift came with a complication.

LocalCoho, a New York salmon farm that was closing, wanted to give 18,100 kilograms of coho salmon to the Food Bank of Central New York. The high-quality protein could feed thousands of families.

However, the gift fish were still alive and swimming in the farm's large tanks. The organization needed to find a way to remove about 13,000 salmon from the tanks and, later, process them into food.

And the food aid group needed to do all this quickly, before the business closed permanently² at the end of January.

Thanks to many volunteers, the group was able to empty the tanks in time, place the fish in cold storage and transport them to a processer.

Brian McManus is the food bank's chief operations officer. He said that the short amount of time to complete the operation made activities difficult. But, he said, “I knew that we had the will. I knew we had the expertise³.”

Food waste has been a big problem around the world for years. More than one-third of the food produced in the United States is never eaten and much of it ends up in landfills.

Christina Hudson Kohler was among the volunteers who got into the water to collect the fish and put them into the cold storage containers.

“It's a little bit different,” Kohler said during a break. “In the past, my volunteer work with the food bank has been sorting carrots or peppers....”

LocalCoho was a new company that had been developing a sustainable salmon farming system. The system employed recirculated water. The company had been supplying coho salmon to buyers, including restaurants, with the goal of building farms across the country.

But company officials said they could not raise enough money from investors⁴ to grow and become profitable. So, they decided⁵ to close the business.

Adam Kramarsyck was the salmon farm's manager. He said the company did not want the fish to go to waste so it sought a way to donate them.

Kramarsyck said of the effort, “It's ‘lemonade out of lemons.'” The expression means to create good from a bad situation.

The donation is expected to provide more than 26,000 servings of hard-to-source protein for the hungry.

“Protein, animal protein is very, very desirable. We know that people need it for nourishment⁶ and it's difficult to get. And so this is going to make a very large impact," said McManus, the food bank chief.

“I don't anticipate this being here very long,'' he added. "We've had salmon before, but not like this.”

I'm John Russell.

Michael Hill reported on this story for the Associated Press. John Russell adapted it for VOA Learning English.

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Words in This Story

complication – n. something that makes a situation more complicated or difficult

landfill – n. a system of trash and garbage disposal in which the waste is buried between layers of earth to build up low-lying land

manager – n. a person who looks after and make decisions about a business, activity or other operation

sustainable – adj. of or related to the use of natural resources in a way that does not deplete⁷ them

recirculate – v to cause to circulate (or flow without obstruction) again and again

impact – n. an important effect

anticipate – v. to expect; to look forward to as sure or certain

1 salmon   

n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的

参考例句：

• We saw a salmon jumping in the waterfall there.我们看见一条大马哈鱼在那边瀑布中跳跃。
• Do you have any fresh salmon in at the moment?现在有新鲜大马哈鱼卖吗？

2 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

3 expertise   

n.专门知识(或技能等)，专长

参考例句：

• We were amazed at his expertise on the ski slopes.他斜坡滑雪的技能使我们赞叹不已。
• You really have the technical expertise in a new breakthrough.让你真正在专业技术上有一个全新的突破。

4 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 nourishment   

n.食物，营养品；营养情况

参考例句：

• Lack of proper nourishment reduces their power to resist disease.营养不良降低了他们抵抗疾病的能力。
• He ventured that plants draw part of their nourishment from the air.他大胆提出植物从空气中吸收部分养分的观点。

7 deplete   

v.弄空，排除，减轻，减少...体液，放去...的血

参考例句：

• Most native mammal species have been severely depleted.大多数本地哺乳动物的数量都已经大大减少了。
• Elastic collisions deplete very little of the electron's energy.弹性碰撞中电子减少的能量非常少。