Lots of seafood ratings and lots of confusion

A fresh-fish display at Whole Foods Market.

It would be an exaggeration to say there are as many seafood rating agencies as there are fish in the sea.

Still, if you take a look at the ratings of wild-caught and farmed fish and other seafood by a half-dozen groups, you'll come away with a lot of unanswered questions and a fair amount of confusion.

Whole Foods Market has its own seafood ratings, and the organic and natural foods supermarket chain also finishes at or near the top in outside ratings of retail fish counters.

Whole Foods has its own seafood processing plant and the fish sold there is among the freshest, but it also is one of the most expensive places to buy seafood.

However, it's a great place to buy fillets, whole fish and shellfish when they are on sale.

A Cuban sandwich made with smoked wild Alaskan salmon from Costco Wholesale.

There is a great selection of seafood at Costco Wholesale, and my warehouse store in Hackensack is only a couple of miles away from home.

We buy wild-caught fish fillets and farmed Black Tiger shrimp at Costco and whole fish, blue crabs and other seafood at H Mart, a national chain of Korean supermarkets with several stores in North Jersey.

Click on the following links to see seafood rating agencies I came across in a Google search:


Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch 

Fish Choice 

Whole Foods Market/Seafood

Environmental Defense Fund Seafood Selector
  
Greenpeace Supermarket Rankings

Blue Ocean Institute