The Messy Truth About Dollar Tree Salmon

If you find yourself wanting to stock up on gift bags, birthday cards, bags of candy, and other odds and ends, then Dollar Tree is a perfect place to get them. If you're looking for high-quality ingredients for cheap, you may be better off paying that little bit of extra money for them somewhere else. 

This isn't to say that your local Dollar Tree is unsafe or a disreputable place. Many stores work hard to be seen as trustworthy and charitable providers of everyday goods, shedding the stereotype that dollar stores sell low-quality junk to unsuspecting customers. With that being said, however, there are certain products sold by Dollar Tree that have left many cautious about doing their weekly grocery shopping there. 

As Reader's Digest explains, Dollar Tree sells certain goods — such as foodstuffs — that come from liquidated companies or off-brands, which raises some red flags about their quality. Adding to the vague unease of certain Dollar Tree foods is a report from Food Safety News in March 2022, which details that multiple products sold to Dollar Tree from Family Dollar were recalled due to a "rodent infestation."

It also seems that the unfortunate stereotype of poor-quality food at Dollar Tree applies to its seafood selection, as one TikTok user discovered upon tasting salmon purchased from the dollar store.

TikTok user "wafffler69," in an apparent series of videos highlighting foods from Dollar Tree, "reviewed" a packet of "Rising Tide Wild Salmon Filet" fresh from the dollar store freezer. Almost immediately, wafffler69 was taken aback by several oddities, such as directions that guided the user to watch a YouTube video, an odd smell coming from the bag, and the salmon being a light pink instead of red. Nevertheless, the curly-haired reviewer took it in stride, pan-frying the fillets and covering them with seasoning before finally being able to dig in.

Well, at least he tried to dig in, considering that both times he spit the salmon back out as soon it touched his lips. Waffler69  seemed disgusted by the flavor and the texture of the salmon, noting that the skin "tears like rubber" rather than being crispy or flakey, and had a black, almost-burnt tinge to it.

Maybe "wafffler69" cooked it wrong, perhaps misinterpreting the directions and blaming it on the salmon? It would seem that Dollar Tree's salmon has a reputation that precedes it, as Redditors on r/KetoMealPrep seemed to be just as cautious about it as "wafffler69" was. One review, however, said that while they didn't believe it was real salmon, it still had a salty, flakey, taste to it as one would expect. 

While there are plenty of good things to get at Dollar Tree, perhaps seafood isn't one of them.