Prince's slap to Scottish salmon with Alaskan order for Highland smokery

The move has outraged Scotland's fish-farmers, who insist that Scotland has plenty of top-quality salmon.

Julie Edgar, a spokeswoman for the Scottish Salmon Producers' Organisation, described the move as a snub.

She said: "I think our members will be quite annoyed over this decision and would have liked the opportunity to show the duchy what they have to offer.

"Scottish salmon is renowned all over the world. The prince could have found excellent salmon in Scotland."

Ms Edgar added: "When you consider that this Alaskan salmon will have to be shipped thousands of miles to be smoked in Scotland it runs against the green ethos of the duchy."

After being transported from Alaska, the salmon are smoked using traditional Scottish methods at Macraes of Strathaird in the Highlands.

Duchy Selections, the prince's firm, uses hazelwood from the Duchy of Cornwall Estates in Herefordshire, mixed with aged oak whisky-cask shavings to produce a rounded, mellow flavour.

The salmon is also smoked with honey from the Balmoral estate and costs 6.99 for 140g.

Duchy Selections' Smoked Salmon is already on sale in 70 Sainsbury stores across the UK- with more supermarkets being lined up for the new year.

The prince is patron of the Pitlochry-based Atlantic Salmon Trust, which has been locked in a war of words with fish farmers for years. The Salmon Trust claims that fish farming is putting the future of wild salmon at risk.

Prince Charles himself is known to have concerns about farmed salmon.

The prince organised a private family dinner to celebrate the Queen's 80th birthday in April, where the starter was a timbale of "organic" Hebridean smoked salmon.

But Duchy Selections is the non-organic arm of the prince's Duchy Originals food empire. Wild fish cannot be classified as organic.

The only other fish product that the prince's firm sells is Cornish mackerel pt - using fish caught off Cornwall.

A spokeswoman for Duchy Originals said the salmon was line-caught in "icy clear Alaskan waters". She added it had been picked ahead of Scottish salmon because it had been certified by the independent Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for its sustainability.

The spokeswoman added: "The fishery is certified by the MSC. Duchy Originals have been working with the MSC in partnership for some time to source wild, sustainably caught fish for a number of products, including the existing Duchy MSC Cornish Wild Mackerel Pt."

Earlier this year, politicians and fish farmers protested against an "unwarranted and unjustified" advertisement by Birds Eye suggesting that wild Pacific salmon is better and healthier than Scottish farmed salmon, because the fish feed on shrimps and other crustaceans, while farmed fish are pink because of additives in their food.

But despite the food scares, the market for Scottish farmed salmon is booming, with 1.4 million new consumers in the past two years alone.