Eating healthy requires more than merely curbing that craving for burgers and fries. In the case of mercury levels in fish, for instance, it can mean having a working knowledge of biology and chemistry.

Safe Harbor Foods intends to make that easier for both retailers and consumers with its rapid, on-site testing program.

The program tests individual pieces of fish and offers an instant result; fish with the Safe Harbor Foods certification contain mercury levels less than half of that which the FDA allows.

Concentration levels in swordfish, a species known to be relatively high in mercury, “could be as low as salmon or, as we’ve measured, five times the action level of 1.0 ppm (part per million) set by the FDA and thus should not be sold,” says Safe Harbor Foods CEO Mal Wittenberg, but a consumer “would have no idea what was in the food being purchased.”

Safe Harbor Food’s mercury testing can be performed on the dock or at a processing and distribution center. For the dockside testing, company analysts work in far-flung locations like General Santos City in the Philippines. When yellow fin tuna is brought to the dock to be graded, a Safe Harbor employee takes a piece about the size of a fingernail; in less than a minute, he knows the concentration of mercury “down to a sensitivity of 10 parts per billion,” Wittenberg says.

“Fish that pass our test receive a traceability tag that tells the location, date, type of fish, the weight and the mercury concentration.” Fish that don’t pass also are labeled at the facility “so there’s no co-mingling.” The distributor ships the certified fish to retailers that have contracted with Safe Harbor Foods.

The company also tests swordfish in Chile (loins are tested dockside; headed and gutted whole fish are sampled at the dock, and tests are performed while the fish is being flown to the United States). Additional testing sites are scheduled to open in Fiji and the Maldives by the end of the year.

Safe Harbor Foods began working on its high-speed analyzer technology in 2000 with the intention of offering in-home testing kits to consumers, but focus groups “told us that we ought to go back further in the [supply] chain,” Wittenberg says. “They are not happy testing at their house after they’ve purchased the product.”

Not cost-prohibitive
The first commercial operation began in 2004. Though it is a decidedly high-tech operation, it is not cost-prohibitive. Wittenberg says that by the time the fish arrives in a 4- or 6-ounce portion for the consumer, the cost increase is a few pennies.

Having testing sites any and everywhere a fish could be caught is impractical, of course, but testing in processing plants can allow a retailer to certify entire cases of fish. Haggen Food & Pharmacy, a 15-store grocery chain in Washington and Oregon, contracts with Safe Harbor Foods to test every piece of fish at its distributor that is destined for one of its stores.

The company recently has begun testing fish for The Fish Market, a California-based seafood restaurant, and is working on a joint venture with an Italian supplier to service retailers in Europe.

Safe Harbor Foods works with several large national grocers, though none displays the company’s certification label or discusses mercury testing publicly.

“I think that will change” once consumers come to realize that testing is another way that retailers can look out for their well-being, Wittenberg says. “Eventually, they’ll benefit in the branding. Some of the large chains are indicating they’d rather not raise the issue at the case. There’s one retailer that had taken swordfish off the counter because of the issue [but is] returning it to the case thanks to the testing.”

According to Wittenberg, Haggen has experienced a “fairly significant increase in seafood sales year over year” and another client saw a 14 percent increase in fish sales. “People who are branding [fish as being certified] are seeing a benefit,” he says.