Low Mercury Fish

Cool! They are conducting a market research test, to see if there is demand for low merc fish. To those who have access to this groceries, please help create a market for low merc fish. But try to stick with seafood that are not endangered.

From the SF Chronicle:

Shoppers browsing the seafood counters at Holiday Quality Foods' 19 grocery stores in rural Northern California now have a new option: the Safe Harbor brand, the nation's first line of certified low-mercury fresh fish.

The label, introduced Monday, is part of a market test by the supermarket chain and Pacific Seafood Group, one of the nation's largest fish wholesalers, to see if customers would buy more fish if they had more information about mercury content. Holiday is using a new technology that takes just minutes rather than days to measure the mercury concentration in fish.

"This is a way to regain the confidence of consumers who worry about seafood and mercury," said Chuck Holman, retail sales manager for Pacific Seafood, Holiday's supplier. "The technology is available, so we might as well use it."

Studies have found that high concentrations of mercury in pregnant women, nursing mothers and young children are harmful to brain development. Big fish, such as swordfish, shark and tuna, tend to be contain more mercury than smaller fish such as salmon.

Advisories warning women of childbearing age to avoid fish with high mercury levels have eaten into Holiday's sales. During the past two years, the chain's sales of fresh fish have fallen 3 percent while the number of questions shoppers ask about mercury has risen, said David Parrish, Holiday's director of perishables.

That's a worrying trend for Holiday, as well as for Pacific Seafood, headquartered near Portland, Ore. Holman hopes that, by providing more information about the mercury in fish, the industry can win back customers.