Mermaid Garden – Taking Seafood Transparency to New Level

Excerpted from an article by Amelia Pang, Epoch Times:

NEW YORK—Consumers and chefs have the potential to alter the scientific facts that portend fish will be extinct from Earth by 2048. But in a world where, according to the United Nations, 30 percent of fish products are mislabeled, it becomes difficult for people to eat responsibly. 

Since the prediction was made in a 2006 study by Boris Worm, PhD, of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, there has been a rise in sustainable fishing efforts, although many were marred by issues in transparency. 

But Mermaid’s Garden, which runs Brooklyn’s first Community Supported Fishery (CSF), is taking seafood transparency to the next level. 

The Park Slope-based seafood consultancy uses a community fishery model to connect customers with seafood that has been caught sustainably within a day or two by small-scale fishers.

A CSF works in a similar fashion to the better-known Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) system, which delivers fresh produce directly from local farms to consumers. 

Mermaid’s Garden cuts out the middleman to bring fresh and sustainably-fished seafood to over 300 customers in Brooklyn. Customers sign up for a season at a time and receive fresh fish once a week. 

Brooklynites can either purchase a half-share or a full-share. A half-share (1-1.25 pounds/week) can feed two people once a week, and cost $66 for four weeks of fish. 

Full-shares (2-2.25 pounds/week) can feed four people once a week, or two people twice a week, and cost $132 for four weeks. Both shares run in four-week cycles. There is also a $15 membership fee. 

Local fish that are currently in season now include black bass, porgy, bluefish, striped bass, summer flounder, swordfish, yellowfin, bigeye tuna.