Cunningham’s is a small, family run company dedicated to producing the finest quality gourmet smoked salmon and trout products.

Smoked Trout, Char and Salmon
Cold smoking is the heart of our operation and a traditional method of creating a special prized delicacy. There are numerous cultural traditions employing this method and Cunningham’s most closely adheres to the Scottish tradition. The process takes about two days to complete and smoking temperature is 20˚ - 23˚ C.

Our facilities are located in and near Pincher Creek, Alberta. Our raw fish comes from a number of sources. We constantly strive to find the very best char, trout and salmon. This is the only way we can ensure that our product is consistently of the highest quality and in fact world class. You can visit the websites of our suppliers here and here.

Pink, red and orange fleshed salmonids (char, trout, & salmon) with a relatively high fat content are the most suitable fish for gourmet style cold smoking.  Farmed char and trout are ideal for this purpose.  In keeping with our company’s philosophy this requires sustainable and “well farmed” fish.  This means sound environmental practices in combination with high quality farming practices such as drug free, quality feed, and high water quality rearing practices. Environmental and ethical watchdog organisations such as Oceans Alive, Monterey Aquarium and the Seafood Choice Alliance all place freshwater farmed trout and char at the top of the consumers' choice list. Check here forour opinions on farmed fish

Cunningham’s specializes in Arctic char and Rainbow trout partly for these environmental and farming practice reasons.  Trout and char are freshwater fish & are usually raised in “land based” isolation or very low density site distribution.  Our trout get no hormones, 90% get no antibiotics at all & the rest get none past the fry stage.  Our char get no hormones, almost all get no antibiotics past the fry stage and none get any in the last 18 months of growth. The other reason we specialize in char and trout is that we believe that Albertans deserve and are perfectly capable of our own indigenous gourmet cold smoked delicacies made from trout and char which are native to this region of the continent.

To read media stories about Cunningham's, click on the following links. Calgary Herald, Jan. 21, 2009 Calgary Herald, Dec. 31, 2008 Our cold smoked trout was named one of the 25 best things to eat in Calgary by Avenue Magazine in March 2007. In October 2007, City Palate magazine listed Joe Cunningham as one of its "Heroes of the Harvest".