Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Will you buy certified low mercury seafood?

It had to happen. Seafood buyers can now choose seafood that is certified to be low in mercury, based on chemical testing.

Seafood contamination scares have created an opportunity to sell certified "safe" seafood, and now some seafood businesses are filling the demand. Mercury in seafood is bad, and the seafood industry needs to do more than tell conumers "everything's fine."

Bristol Farms markets in Southern California has stepped up to the plate, and will be selling Safe Harbor certified, low-mercury seafood.

What's next? Broader chemical testing and certification? How about seafood that's certified to be what it says on the label? Now there's a concept.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How can they really certify this without testing individual fillets--something which I suspect is cost-prohibitive?

Anonymous said...

I think its great that Bristol is providing its customers with this service, and more information available to seafood consumers is definitely a good thing.

One thing that should be pointed out about the Safe Harbor program is that "high-mercury" fish can still be certified, as long as it tests below the FDA-reported median for each species.

For example, swordfish below 0.86 ppm would receive the Safe Harbor seal, even though this is still a pretty high mercury level.