NZ Edible Fish — Price vs Nutrition vs Mercury

Colour key: 🟩 Kahawai 🟦 Red cod 🟪 King salmon 🐟 Fish & seafood 🥩 Meat & poultry · mercury band: unrestricted 3–4 serves/week 1/week or less

TL;DR

What they are. Fifteen species you can actually buy in New Zealand today, scored on the three things that change an outcome: what a kilo costs, what it delivers nutritionally, and how much mercury comes with it. They have more in common than you'd think — almost every white fish here is 17–21 g of protein per 100 g, and all of them sit under the 0.5 mg/kg regulatory ceiling. What separates them is fat (which is the omega-3), price, and for four species, mercury.

Is one better, or does it depend? One wins outright. Kahawai takes it, 8.7/10 on the cost-performance score against 5.6 for the runner-up — it is the only species on the list that is simultaneously cheap, high-protein and high-omega-3. In the head-to-head scorecard below it wins 5 of 11 factors to red cod's 3 and king salmon's 3. It depends only if you are pregnant (kahawai is a 3–4 serves/week fish, so it drops off the list entirely) or if you need a whole week's omega-3 from one meal (only king salmon does that).

	🟩 Kahawai — buy it when	🟦 Red cod — buy it when	🟪 King salmon — buy it when
Price	≤$27/kg fillet · $15/kg whole	$20/kg fillet — cheapest here	$63/kg fillet
Advantage	8.7/10 CP — 3.1× the runner-up · 21.2 g protein/100 g (highest) · 0.65 g omega-3 per $, best on the list · superb smoked	8.5 g protein per $, best on the list · 74 kcal/100 g, leanest here · $43/kg cheaper than salmon	110% of a week's omega-3 in one 150 g serve · 0.022 mg/kg mercury — 3% of weekly PTWI · unrestricted, eat it daily
Don't buy it if you need…	❌ an unrestricted-mercury fish (it's 3–4 serves/week)❌ a fish for pregnancy❌ a mild flavour — it is oily and strong❌ a delicate poach or a cream sauce	❌ any meaningful omega-3 (0.6 g total fat)❌ a fillet that survives the pan without the dry-salt-chill fix❌ a fish that keeps — cook it the day you buy it❌ it whole right now — out of stock	❌ protein on a budget (2.9 g/$, 2.9× worse than red cod)❌ under 1090 kJ/100 g❌ a wild-caught fish — it's farmed❌ a white fish for crumbing

Kahawai has no published NZ mercury measurement — its 3–4 serves/week band is MPI's judgement call, not a number. If you want a species whose mercury is actually measured and low, that's king salmon at 0.022 mg/kg.

These are specialist fishmonger and online-delivery prices, not supermarket prices, and some are upper bounds. See Where these prices come from.

---

Status right now — 8 September 2026

Every price in this doc was re-fetched from the retailer's live page today. Here is what is actually true this morning:

Signal	Reading	Fresh?
Prices re-measured	3 retailers, ~30 species, fetched 8 Sep 2026	✅ today
National benchmark	Fresh fish NZ$49.62/kg — an all-time high in a Stats NZ series running back to Feb 2007	✅ Jul 2026, released 17 Aug 2026
Fish price trend	+8.3% YoY vs +1.9% for the whole food basket — fish is inflating 4.4× the food average, and overtook red meat in Jun 2026 🔀	✅ Jul 2026
Next data point	Stats NZ August SPI — 18 Sep 2026, 10 days away	⏳ not yet published
Cheapest protein on the board	Red cod $20/kg fillet — unchanged	✅ verified today
Best CP score	Kahawai 8.7/10 — unchanged	✅ verified today
Out of stock today	Solander whole red cod ($13.50/kg G&G) · Sanford blue cod fillets and hāpuku fillets	⚠️ checked today
MPI mercury advisory	3 bands, unchanged; no NZ mercury measurement for 11 of the 15 species (9 have no figure at all, 2 use overseas proxies), and moki is on no list at all	⚠️ advisory current, underlying data thin
FDA mercury dataset	Means from the 1990–2012 sampling window	❌ 14 years old
NZ snapper mercury data	Single study, 1975 — 51 years old, skewed to large fish	❌ 51 years old
Nutrition panels	NZ Food Files via Moana NZ spec sheets	✅ current publication

The prices are as fresh as they get (today), the nutrition is solid (NZ-measured, NZ fish), and the mercury numbers are the weak link — the FDA means are 14 years old and NZ has published a species mean for fewer than half the fish here. That does not change the conclusion, because the margins are one to two orders of magnitude wide for everything except the four predators. It does mean the mercury column should be read as band, not as measurement, for kahawai, red cod, trevally, moki, ling, tarakihi, gurnard, monkfish and john dory.

---

Summary table — the factors that decide it

Head-to-head: the three that could win

Everything else on the board is a variation on one of these three. A serve = 150 g, the FSANZ adult portion; percentages are for a 70 kg adult; weekly targets are 4.27 g omega-3 and 112 µg methylmercury.

#	Factor	🟩 Kahawai	🟦 Red cod	🟪 King salmon	Gap	Winner
1	Fillet price NZ$/kg	≤$27	$20	$63	3.1× spread	🟦
2	Protein per NZ$	≥7.9 g	8.5 g	2.9 g	2.9× spread	🟦
3	Protein per 100 g	21.2 g	16.9 g	18.2 g	+25% vs red cod	🟩
4	Omega-3 per 100 g	~1.75 g (est.)	~0.05 g	3.15 g	63× salmon vs red cod	🟪
5	Omega-3 per NZ$	0.65 g	~0.01 g	0.50 g	+30% vs salmon	🟩
6	Week's omega-3 per serve	53–70% (est.)	~1%	110%	1.7× vs kahawai	🟪
7	Mercury per serve	no NZ mean · band only	no NZ mean · band only	3.3 µg = 3% PTWI	only one measured	🟪
8	Serves/week ceiling	3–4	3–4	unrestricted	∞ vs 4	🟪
9	Energy per 100 g	684 kJ	309 kJ	1090 kJ	3.5× spread	🟦
10	Whole-fish option	$15/kg, in stock	$13.50/kg — ❌ out of stock	❌ none sold	only one buyable today	🟩
11	Nutrition score /10 (price-blind)	7.8	4.0	🏆 9.3	2.3× spread	🟪
12	CP score /10 (nutrition ÷ price)	🏆 8.7	4.7	5.6	1.6× vs salmon	🟩
=	Factors won	🏆 5	3	4		🟩

Read it this way: red cod wins the money rows, salmon wins the mercury, omega-3 and raw-nutrition rows — king salmon is genuinely the most nutritious fish on this list, 9.3/10 against kahawai's 7.8 — and kahawai still takes it by being a close second on nutrition while costing $36/kg less. That is exactly what the CP score is measuring, which is why it lands at 8.7 against 5.6 and 4.7.

All 15 species, ranked by CP

Species	CP /10	Nutrition /10	Fillet NZ$/kg	Whole NZ$/kg	g protein per NZ$	Protein /100 g	Omega-3 per 150 g serve (% of weekly need)	Hg — edible part (mg/kg)	Hg — whole fish (mg/kg, est.)	Hg per 150 g serve (% of weekly PTWI)	Serves/week
Kahawai	🏆 8.7	7.8	≤$27	$15	≥7.9	21.2 g	~2.2–3.0 g (est. 53–70%)	no NZ mean	—	no NZ mean	3–4
King salmon (farmed)	5.6	🏆 9.3	$63	—	2.9	18.2 g	4.7 g (110%)	0.022	~0.015	3.3 µg (3%)	unrestricted
Hoki	5.1	4.1	≤$22	—	≥6.9	15.2 g	0.45 g (11%)	~0.079†	~0.055	~12 µg (11%)	unrestricted
Trevally	4.8	5.5	≤$28	$23	≥7.5	20.9 g	~0.5 g (12%)	no NZ mean	—	no NZ mean	3–4
Moki (blue moki)	4.7	5.5	$29	$22	7.2	20.9 g	~0.5 g (est. 12%)	not on any MPI list	—	no NZ mean	unlisted ※
Red cod	4.7	4.0	$20	$13.50 (G&G)	8.5	16.9 g	very low	no NZ mean	—	no NZ mean	3–4
Ling	3.5	4.8	$30	$22	6.4	19.7 g	low	no NZ mean	—	no NZ mean	3–4
Tarakihi	2.9	4.9	≤$49	≤$24	≥3.7	17.9 g	0.6 g (14%)	no NZ mean	—	no NZ mean	unrestricted
Gurnard	2.8	5.0	≤$46	≤$24	≥4.5	20.6 g	low	no NZ mean	—	no NZ mean	unrestricted
Monkfish (stargazer)	2.8	4.4	$41	—	4.2	17.4 g	low	no NZ mean‡	—	no NZ mean	unrestricted
Snapper	2.6	5.7	≤$57	$25	≥3.5	20.1 g	0.9 g (21%)	0.34	~0.24	51 µg (46%)	3–4
John dory	2.2	4.9	$46	≤$27	3.6	20.6 g	low	no NZ mean	—	no NZ mean	unrestricted
Swordfish	1.5	5.8	$45	—	~4.4	~20 g	moderate	0.995	~0.70	149 µg (133%)	1 per 1–2 wks
Blue cod	1.3	4.4	$84	≤$28	2.2	18.1 g	low	~0.111†	~0.078	~17 µg (15%)	unrestricted
Orange roughy	0.9	3.9	$66	—	~2.4	~16 g	low	0.571	~0.40	86 µg (76%)	1/week

≤ marks a price derived from a "minimum weight" pack, so it is a ceiling — the real per-kg price is lower if the pack runs heavy, which makes protein-per-dollar a floor (hence ≥). † proxy figure (hake for hoki, cod for blue cod) — no NZ measurement published. ※ Moki appears on none of MPI's three lists — not the unrestricted one, not the 3–4/week one, not the fortnightly one. Its CP is calculated with the 0.9 factor of the 3–4/week band as the conservative default; on an unrestricted factor of 1.0 it would score 5.2 and rank 3rd. ‡ FDA lists "monkfish" at 0.161 mg/kg, but that is Lophius, a completely different fish from NZ stargazer; MPI puts NZ monkfish in the unrestricted group.

Weekly need = 4.27 g omega-3 (0.61 g/day, adult male). Weekly PTWI = 112 µg methylmercury for a 70 kg adult (JECFA, 1.6 µg/kg bw/week).

How the CP score is calculated

Fully transparent, so you can disagree with the weightings:

protein_value  = (g protein per NZ$ ÷ 8.5) × 10        # 8.5 = best on list (red cod)
omega3_value   = (g omega-3 per NZ$ ÷ 0.65) × 10       # 0.65 = best on list (kahawai)
nutrition      = (protein_value + omega3_value) ÷ 2     # protein and omega-3 weighted equally
mercury_factor = 1.0 unrestricted | 0.9 (3–4/wk) | 0.6 (1/wk) | 0.4 (1 per 1–2 wks)

CP = nutrition × mercury_factor

How the Nutrition score is calculated

The CP score blends nutrition with price. The Nutrition score deliberately does not — it is what you get per 100 g on the plate, whatever it cost:

protein_score = (g protein per 100 g ÷ 21.2) × 10     # 21.2 = best on list (kahawai)
omega3_score  = (g omega-3 per 100 g ÷ 3.15) × 10     # 3.15 = best on list (king salmon)

Nutrition = (protein_score + omega3_score) ÷ 2         # no price, no mercury discount

King salmon is the most nutritious fish here — 9.3/10, and nothing is close — but it scores 5.6 on CP because you pay $63/kg for it. Kahawai is second on nutrition (7.8) and first on CP (8.7) because it costs 2.3× less. Read Nutrition if money is no object; read CP if it is.

The weighting is the argument. Score protein alone and red cod wins; score omega-3 alone and king salmon wins; weight them equally and apply a mercury discount and kahawai wins by a mile — it is the only species that is cheap on both axes at once. If you only care about hitting a protein target, ignore the CP column and read the protein-per-dollar one instead.

---

Main features — can it do X?

The "what do I actually cook with it" lookup. The ❌s are the useful part. ⚠️ = works, but with a caveat named in Species notes.

Species	Raw / ceviche	Smoked	BBQ, skewers (holds shape)	Crumbed, battered	Curry, chowder	Mercury-unrestricted	≥0.5 g omega-3 per serve	Fillet under $30/kg
Kahawai	✅	✅ best on list	✅	⚠️	❌ too strong	❌ 3–4/wk	✅	✅
Red cod	❌	✅	❌ falls apart	✅	⚠️	❌ 3–4/wk	❌	✅ $20
King salmon	✅	✅	✅	❌	⚠️	✅	✅ 110%	❌ $63
Hoki	❌	❌	❌	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅ ≤$22
Trevally	✅	✅	✅	⚠️	⚠️	❌ 3–4/wk	✅ 0.5 g	✅ ≤$28
Moki (blue moki)	❌	✅	✅ firm, holds shape	✅	✅	⚠️ unlisted by MPI	❌	✅ $29
Ling	❌	⚠️	✅	✅	✅	❌ 3–4/wk	❌	⚠️ $30 exactly
Tarakihi	⚠️	⚠️	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅ 0.6 g	❌ ≤$49
Gurnard	❌	⚠️	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌ ≤$46
Monkfish (stargazer)	❌	❌	✅ best on list	⚠️	✅ best on list	✅	❌	❌ $41
Snapper	✅ best white fish raw	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌ 3–4/wk	✅ 0.9 g	❌ ≤$57
John dory	⚠️	❌	⚠️	✅	⚠️	✅	❌	❌ $46
Swordfish	⚠️	⚠️	✅	❌	❌	❌ 1 per 1–2 wks	✅	❌ $45
Blue cod	❌	❌	⚠️	✅	⚠️	✅	❌	❌ $84
Orange roughy	❌	❌	⚠️	✅	✅	❌ 1/wk	❌	❌ $66

Scoring the row, not the fish: only 2 of 15 are mercury-unrestricted and deliver ≥0.5 g omega-3 per serve — king salmon (4.7 g) and tarakihi (0.6 g), and nothing else comes close. Only 5 of 15 come in under $30/kg fillet. Exactly one — kahawai — is in the top three on both omega-3 and price, and it pays for that with a 3–4 serves/week band.

Cooking-suitability columns are judgement calls sourced from Seafood NZ and Moana NZ species descriptions, not measurements. Everything else in this table is measured or regulated.

---

How to choose

1. Hard blockers — these decide it outright

If this is true of you	Then	No further thought needed
Pregnant, breastfeeding, or planning pregnancy	Gurnard, hoki, john dory, monkfish, blue cod, flounder or farmed salmon — the MPI unrestricted list. Tarakihi qualifies on mercury but see the ⚠️ below on stock	Kahawai, red cod, trevally, ling and snapper are all 3–4/week fish. They are off the list.
You need a week's omega-3 from one meal	King salmon, no substitute	110% per 150 g serve. Next best on the board is snapper at 21% — 5.2× behind.
Cheapest possible protein, omega-3 irrelevant	Red cod $20/kg	8.5 g protein per dollar. Hoki at ≥6.9 is the only thing close.
You eat fish more than 4× a week	Pick from the unrestricted list for at least some of those meals	MPI's own trigger.
You want firm texture for BBQ or curry, on a budget	Monkfish $41/kg	Same job as blue cod for $43/kg less — 2.0× cheaper.
You're serving it raw	Snapper or king salmon	Nothing else here is reliably safe or good raw.
Feeding a crowd for the least money	Hoki ≤$22/kg	Crumb it. It is the backbone of NZ's fish-and-chips supply for a reason.
You're calorie-restricted and hitting a protein target	Red cod, 309 kJ (74 kcal)/100 g	3.5× less energy than salmon for 93% of the protein.

Tarakihi is unrestricted on mercury and safe to eat, but its east coast stock is at ~7.7% of unfished biomass with catch cuts of 39–78% proposed for October 2026. If you weigh stock health, pick gurnard or monkfish instead — same job, same unrestricted band, no collapse.

2. Everyone else — the points quiz

Start at zero. Add the points for every statement that is true of you.

Statement	🟩 Kahawai	🟦 Red cod	🟪 King salmon
"I want the most nutrition per dollar spent"	+3	+1	0
"I care about omega-3 specifically"	+2	−2	+3
"Money is the binding constraint"	+1	+3	−2
"I eat fish 5+ times a week"	−2	−2	+3
"I want it smoked, or as ceviche"	+3	+1	+1
"I want a mild fish my family won't complain about"	−3	+2	+1
"I want to buy it whole and fillet it myself"	+3	−1 (out of stock)	−3 (not sold whole)
"I'm watching calories"	0	+2	−2
"I want the mercury number to be measured, not guessed"	−2	−2	+3

On a tie, take kahawai — it has the momentum (cheapest genuinely nutritious fish on the board, and the widest gap to second place at 1.6×) and the lowest downside if you're wrong, because you're out $27/kg rather than $63/kg.

---

Pros

✅ marks a standout, — means no real advantage on that dimension.

Dimension	🟩 Kahawai	🟦 Red cod	🟪 King salmon
Price	✅ ≤$27/kg fillet, $15/kg whole — cheapest whole fish worth eating	✅ $20/kg, the cheapest fillet on the board	— $63/kg, 3.1× red cod
Protein	✅ 21.2 g/100 g — highest on the list	16.9 g/100 g but ✅ 8.5 g per dollar	18.2 g/100 g
Omega-3	✅ 0.65 g per dollar, best on the list	— essentially none	✅ 3.15 g/100 g, covers 110% of a week per serve
Mercury	— unmeasured, banded 3–4/week	— unmeasured, banded 3–4/week	✅ 0.022 mg/kg measured, 3% of PTWI, unrestricted
Calories	684 kJ — moderate	✅ 309 kJ, leanest here	— 1090 kJ, 3.5× red cod
Kitchen range	✅ superb smoked, good raw, good on the BBQ	✅ takes crumb and smoke well	✅ raw, grilled, smoked, roasted
Availability today	✅ in stock, both fillet and whole	fillet ✅ in stock	✅ in stock, 3 formats
Buying whole	✅ $15/kg — the only cheap whole fish here	— $13.50/kg but out of stock	— not sold whole

Cons

❌ marks a real blocker.

Dimension	🟩 Kahawai	🟦 Red cod	🟪 King salmon
Price	—	—	❌ $63–80/kg, 2.3–3.1× the other two
Protein	—	❌ 16.9 g/100 g, lowest here bar hoki	❌ 2.9 g per dollar, 2.9× worse than red cod
Omega-3	⚠️ estimated, not measured — inferred from 8.6 g total fat	❌ ~0.05 g/100 g — effectively zero	—
Mercury	❌ no NZ mean published; capped at 3–4 serves/week on judgement	❌ no NZ mean published; capped at 3–4 serves/week	—
Calories	—	—	❌ 1090 kJ/100 g — the most energy-dense fish here
Kitchen range	❌ oily and strongly flavoured; wrong for a delicate poach or cream sauce; must be bled and iced immediately or it turns	❌ watery, soft flesh that falls apart in the pan unless you pat dry, salt and chill 2 hours; ❌ does not keep — cook the day you buy	❌ too rich to crumb or batter
Pregnancy	❌ not on the unrestricted list	❌ not on the unrestricted list	— ✅ it is on the list
Availability	—	❌ whole G&G out of stock today	—
Provenance	—	—	⚠️ farmed, not wild — matters to some buyers, not to the numbers

---

Similarities — what genuinely doesn't differ

Stop weighing these; they are the same across the board:

• Protein is flat. 12 of the 15 species sit between 15.2 and 21.2 g per 100 g — a 1.4× spread across fish whose prices span 4.2× ($20 to $84). Paying more does not buy more protein.
• All 15 are legally under the ceiling. The Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code sets 0.5 mg/kg for most fish, 1.0 mg/kg for the listed predators. Even swordfish at 0.995 mg/kg is compliant. "Restricted" is an advisory band, not a legal breach.
• Every mercury limit anywhere is set on the fillet, not the whole fish — FDA, FSANZ and MPI all sample edible portion.
• Whole-fish yield is ~40–45% skin-on fillet for every round fish here (~50% for gilled-and-gutted), so the whole-vs-fillet arithmetic works the same way for all of them.
• All prices are NZ$, GST-inclusive, per kg, from the same three retailers on the same day.
• All are NZ-caught or NZ-farmed — no overseas substitutes in the nutrition figures.
• All are governed by the same MPI advisory, aimed primarily at pregnancy and young children.

Every white fish here is the same 17–21 g of protein in different packaging — the only thing that actually varies is fat, and fat is simultaneously the omega-3, most of the price, and the entire reason kahawai beats a fish costing 2.3× as much.

---

Does mercury actually matter?

The claim: mercury sits mainly in the organs, and nobody eats fish liver, so it's not really a problem.

It's a reasonable-sounding argument that fails on the one metal it's being used to dismiss.

Whole fish vs edible part — the numbers that settle it

If mercury really did concentrate in the organs, then a whole-fish measurement (guts included) would come out higher than a fillet measurement, and the part you actually eat would be the clean part. The opposite is true:

Measurement	What it is	Relative concentration
Edible part (fillet muscle)	What you eat. What FDA, FSANZ and MPI actually sample.	Highest — the reference value in every table in this doc
Whole fish (muscle + bone + skin + viscera)	Ecotoxicology metric, not a food-safety one	~0.6–0.8× the fillet, because low-mercury tissue dilutes the total

Muscle is the principal long-term methylmercury depot in a fish. Everything else in the carcass — bone, skin, fat, gut contents — carries less, so blending it all together lowers the average. That is why the whole-fish column above is consistently below the edible-part column, and why every regulatory limit in the world is written against fillet concentration: it is the worst case, and it is also the part on your plate.

The direction is well established, but no whole-fish measurements exist for NZ inshore species. Those figures are estimated at ~0.7× the fillet value and are indicative only. The edible-part column is the measured one, and it is the only one that governs any guideline.

Why the fillet is where the mercury is

Mercury in fish is overwhelmingly methylmercury — the organic form, and the toxic one. It has a very high affinity for sulfur, so it binds to the free sulfhydryl groups on cysteine residues in muscle protein. In fish muscle it is found almost exclusively as the MeHg–cysteine complex; in tuna, researchers identified the main binding partner as skeletal muscle myosin heavy chain. Methylmercury is, quite literally, stuck to the meat.

Tissue	Role
Muscle (the fillet)	The principal long-term methylmercury depot. Highest MeHg-to-total-Hg ratio — typically 70–95% of total mercury there is the methyl form.
Liver	Where the fish demethylates mercury into the less toxic inorganic form and stores it. Total mercury can be high, but the methyl fraction is markedly lower than in muscle.

So the organ argument gets it backwards twice over: the liver holds less of the toxic form and is where the fish neutralises it, while the fillet is where the dangerous form is parked.

Where the myth comes from: it is genuinely true for cadmium, lead, copper and zinc, which do concentrate in liver and kidney. New Zealand heavy-metal surveys of commercial sea fish found exactly that — edible flesh was fine while some organs carried relatively high concentrations. Someone read that finding, generalised "heavy metals" into "mercury", and a durable piece of folk wisdom was born.

You cannot trim it or cook it out

Two follow-on beliefs fail for the same reason — methylmercury is bound to protein, not stored in fat:

• Trimming skin and fat doesn't help. That advice is real, but it is advice for PCBs and dioxins, which are fat-soluble. Mercury doesn't follow it.
• Cooking doesn't help either. A study of common cooking methods on sardines and sprats found no treatment consistently reduced total or methylmercury across both species. Worse, moisture loss during cooking can raise the concentration per 100 g of what lands on your plate. The authors' conclusion: culinary method "should not be considered a dependable exposure-reduction strategy."

The dose numbers

The real question isn't "is there mercury" — it's "how much fish before it matters". JECFA's provisional tolerable weekly intake is 1.6 µg methylmercury per kg body weight per week = 112 µg/week for a 70 kg adult. (The US EPA reference dose is stricter: 0.1 µg/kg/day ≈ 49 µg/week.)

Species	Hg — edible part (mg/kg)	Hg — whole fish (est.)	kg/week to reach PTWI	On the stricter EPA dose
Shrimp	0.009	~0.006	12.4 kg	5.4 kg
Oyster	0.012	~0.008	9.3 kg	4.1 kg
Sardine	0.013	~0.009	8.6 kg	3.8 kg
Salmon (farmed)	0.022	~0.015	5.1 kg	2.2 kg
Flounder	0.056	~0.039	2.0 kg	875 g
Hake	0.079	~0.055	1.4 kg	620 g
Cod	0.111	~0.078	1.0 kg	441 g
Canned light tuna	0.126	~0.088	889 g	389 g
Monkfish (Lophius)	0.161	~0.113	696 g	304 g
Snapper (NZ, 1970s data)	0.34	~0.24	329 g	144 g
Albacore tuna, canned	0.350	~0.245	320 g	140 g
Marlin	0.485	~0.340	231 g	101 g
Orange roughy	0.571	~0.400	196 g	86 g
Bigeye tuna	0.689	~0.482	163 g	71 g
Shark	0.979	~0.685	114 g	50 g
Swordfish	0.995	~0.697	113 g	49 g

Edible-part concentrations are FDA means (1990–2012) except NZ snapper; whole-fish values are estimated at 0.7×. The whole argument, in one table:

• For most of what New Zealanders actually eat, the margin is enormous. Salmon at 5.1 kg a week, flounder at 2 kg, hake at 1.4 kg — nobody is eating that. The dismissive instinct is, for these fish, correct. It just isn't correct for the reason people give.
• For the top of the table, one meal blows the budget. A single 150 g swordfish steak is 133% of a 70 kg adult's weekly allowance. Orange roughy — a fish that can live over 100 years — reaches 76% in one serve, which is why FSANZ caps it at one serve per week with no other fish that week.
• Snapper is the one that surprises people. NZ measurements put it around 0.34 mg/kg, roughly 46% of the weekly allowance per serve — stricter than MPI's "3–4 serves a week" band and closer to two. The data is from the 1970s and skewed toward larger fish, so treat it as a ceiling rather than a verdict.
• Note the whole-fish column changes nothing. Even taking the lower whole-fish figure, swordfish and shark still cap out around 160 g/week. The organ argument doesn't rescue the species that actually matter.

The honest counterweight

Three things cut the other way, and a doc that ignored them would be scaremongering:

1. The benefits are large and well-established. Modest fish intake — 1–2 servings a week — is associated with a 36% lower risk of coronary death. The landmark JAMA benefit-risk review concluded that for adults the benefits of fish intake exceed the potential risks, and that even for women of childbearing age, modest intake outside a few named species comes out ahead. Advising someone off fish entirely to avoid mercury is a bad trade.
2. The human evidence is genuinely mixed. The Faroe Islands cohort found deficits on 8 of 16 neuropsychological tests associated with cord-blood mercury. The Seychelles cohort — eating ocean fish rather than the Faroese pilot whale, which is far higher in mercury and also carries PCBs — found no direct adverse association. Reasonable scientists still argue about which cohort generalises.
3. Selenium may buffer some of it. Most ocean fish have a selenium-to-mercury molar ratio above 1, and selenium can inhibit methylmercury accumulation and promote demethylation. Don't lean on this — it's contested, and some analyses using the selenium-adjusted metric flagged more fish as unsafe, not fewer.

So: who should actually care?

Definitely	Probably not
Pregnant, breastfeeding, or planning pregnancy — the entire advisory framework is built on foetal neurodevelopment	An adult eating hoki, tarakihi, gurnard, blue cod, flounder or salmon two or three times a week
Young children (a serve is 75 g, not 150 g, and body weight halves the allowance)	Anyone eating canned light tuna, mussels, oysters or prawns at normal rates
Anyone eating fish more than four times a week — MPI's own trigger for choosing from the unrestricted list	Someone who had swordfish once on holiday
Regular eaters of shark/lemonfish, swordfish, marlin, southern bluefin tuna, orange roughy
Recreational anglers eating their own large predatory catches — the biggest, oldest fish of a species carry more mercury per kg than smaller, younger ones, so keep the pan-sized ones

The organ argument is factually backwards — methylmercury concentrates in the muscle, the fillet is the most contaminated part of the fish, and no amount of trimming or cooking removes it. But the conclusion it's used to support survives anyway for most of the NZ fish counter, because the concentrations in hoki, tarakihi, gurnard, blue cod and farmed salmon are one to two orders of magnitude below the level where weekly intake becomes a constraint. Get the reasoning right and the advice collapses to something simple: eat plenty of the small, short-lived, low-on-the-food-chain fish, and treat the big old predators as an occasional luxury.

---

Nutrition — per 100 g raw fillet

All figures from New Zealand Food Files data, as published on Moana NZ species spec sheets (Takitimu for gurnard, calorie.co.nz for king salmon). These are NZ-caught fish measured in NZ, not overseas substitutes.

Species	Energy (kJ)	≈ kcal	Protein	Total fat	Sat fat	Sodium
King salmon (farmed)	1090	261	18.2 g	21.2 g	—	—
Kahawai	684	163	21.2 g	8.6 g	2.5 g	50 mg
Snapper	460	110	20.1 g	3.2 g	0.8 g	78 mg
Trevally	454	108	20.9 g	2.8 g	0.7 g	64 mg
Moki (blue moki)	418	100	20.9 g	1.6 g	0.4 g	64 mg
Monkfish (stargazer)	389	93	17.4 g	2.4 g	0.6 g	94 mg
John dory	378	90	20.6 g	0.8 g	0.2 g	82 mg
Gurnard	374	89	20.6 g	0.7 g	—	—
Ling	362	87	19.7 g	0.8 g	0.2 g	142 mg
Blue cod	342	82	18.1 g	0.8 g	0.1 g	87 mg
Tarakihi	337	81	17.9 g	0.9 g	0.2 g	75 mg
Red cod	309	74	16.9 g	0.6 g	0.1 g	92 mg
Hoki	307	73	15.2 g	1.2 g	0.2 g	53 mg

Reading it:

• Moki matches trevally's 20.9 g protein — joint second-highest here, beaten only by kahawai — for 36 fewer kJ. Its 1.6 g fat sits between the near-zero whitefish (0.6–0.9 g) and the oily fish, which is why it scores 5.5 on nutrition rather than 4.x. Best protein-per-kJ on the table is actually gurnard at 5.5 g per 100 kJ, then red cod 5.5 and john dory 5.4; moki is 5.0.
• Protein is remarkably flat — almost every white fish lands between 17 and 21 g/100 g. Paying NZ$64/kg for blue cod instead of NZ$20/kg for red cod buys texture and flavour, not meaningfully more protein.
• Fat is where the real spread is. King salmon (21.2 g) and kahawai (8.6 g) are in a different class from the 0.6–1.2 g white fish. That fat is the omega-3, and it is what the CP score rewards.
• Red cod and hoki are the leanest and lightest — 0.6 g and 1.2 g fat, and the two lowest protein figures. They're cheap for a reason: mostly water.
• Ling's sodium (142 mg) is nearly triple kahawai's. Minor, but worth knowing if you're watching salt.

Omega-3 (EPA + DHA) per 100 g

Published NZ figures, per Healthy Food Guide:

Food	Omega-3	One 150 g serve as % of a man's weekly 4.3 g
Oysters (4–5)	4.0 g	—
NZ King salmon	3.15 g	110%
Atlantic salmon	1.2 g	42%
Sardines, canned & drained	1.2 g	42%
Mussels, steamed	0.8 g	28%
Snapper	0.6 g	21%
Tarakihi	0.4 g	14%
Hoki	0.3 g	11%

Daily targets are 0.61 g for men, 0.43 g for women. Kahawai isn't in this table, but NZ sources group it with jack mackerel and grey mullet as a high-omega-3 species, which its 8.6 g total fat supports. Red cod isn't listed either, but at 0.6 g total fat it can only be trivial.

---

Price — September 2026

Where these prices come from

Three online retailers, re-fetched on 8 September 2026 — every figure below was pulled from the live page today, not carried forward:

Retailer	What it is	How prices are quoted
Theo's Fisheries	Specialist fishmonger	Straight NZ$/kg — these figures are exact
Sanford & Sons	Online delivery	360 g minimum fillet packs, 800 g minimum whole fish
Solander Gourmet Seafood	Online gourmet supplier	Fixed 500 g fillet packs and per-kg whole fish

1. These are not supermarket prices. All three sit at the specialist/premium end. Woolworths, New World and Pak'nSave are generally cheaper for the common species, and that is where most people actually buy fish. Their sites block automated access, so they are not represented here.
2. Every Sanford figure is a ceiling, not a price. Their packs are sold as "360 g minimum" — so dividing $20.60 by 0.36 kg gives $57/kg only if the pack weighs exactly 360 g. A 450 g pack is really $46/kg. Those numbers are marked ≤ throughout and the true price is somewhere below.
3. One retailer is not a market. Theo's and Sanford disagree by up to 30% on identical species.

The national benchmark: Stats NZ's Food Price Index puts the weighted-average retail price of fresh fish in New Zealand at NZ$49.62/kg (July 2026) — an all-time high — compiled across ~53 fish shops and butchers in 12 urban centres. See Trend for the full series. That's a basket average across all fresh fish, not any one species — but it's the right sanity check. Anything below it here (red cod, hoki, kahawai, trevally, ling) is genuinely cheap; anything well above it (blue cod, snapper, hāpuku, salmon at $63–84) is a premium purchase.

All prices in New Zealand dollars (NZ$) per kilogram, GST inclusive, rounded to the nearest dollar.

Fillet vs whole, side by side

Species	Fillet — Theo's	Fillet — Sanford	Fillet — Solander	Whole — Theo's	Whole — Sanford	Whole — Solander
Red cod	—	—	$20	—	—	$13.50 (G&G) — ❌ out of stock
Hoki	$20/bag	≤$22	—	—	—	—
Kahawai	—	≤$27	—	$15	—	—
Trevally	—	≤$28	—	$23	—	—
Gemfish	—	≤$30	—	$10	—	—
Moki	$29	—	—	$22	—	—
Ling	$30	≤$31	—	$22 (blocks)	—	—
Rig (lemonfish)	$30	—	—	—	—	—
Elephant fish	$30	—	—	—	—	—
Blue warehou	$36	—	—	$19	—	—
Hake	$40	—	—	—	—	—
Monkfish	$41	—	—	—	—	—
Swordfish	$45	—	—	—	—	—
Flounder	$46	—	—	$26	—	—
John dory	$46	≤$58	—	—	≤$27	—
Gurnard	$56	≤$46	—	—	≤$24	—
Tarakihi	$52	≤$49	—	$27	≤$24	—
Sole	$56	—	—	—	—	—
Snapper	$67	≤$57	—	$25	≤$28	—
King salmon	$63	≤$80 (side: ≤$69)	—	—	—	—
Orange roughy	$66	—	—	—	—	—
Hāpuku / groper	$70	≤$63 ❌ out of stock	—	—	—	—
Bluenose	$70	—	—	—	—	—
Blue cod	$84	❌ out of stock	—	$40	≤$28 ❌ out of stock	—
Kingfish	—	—	—	$37 (blocks)	—	—
Sea perch	—	—	—	$19	—	—
Jack mackerel	—	—	—	$17	—	—
Skate	—	—	—	$11	—	—

Is whole fish actually cheaper?

Mostly no, which is the opposite of the usual advice. A whole round fish yields roughly 40–45% skin-on fillet, so the honest comparison divides the whole price by ~0.42. (Gilled-and-gutted fish, like Solander's red cod, yield more — closer to 50%.)

Species	Cheapest whole	→ fillet-equivalent	Cheapest actual fillet	Better buy
Gemfish	$10	$24	$30	whole
Kahawai	$15	$36	$27	fillet
Ling	$22	$52	$30	fillet
Trevally	$23	$55	$28	fillet
Moki	$22	$52	$29	fillet
Gurnard	$24	$57	$46	fillet
Tarakihi	$24	$57	$49	fillet
Snapper	$25	$60	$57	~a wash
Red cod	$13.50 (G&G)	$27	$20	fillet
John dory	$27	$64	$46	fillet
Blue cod	$28	$67	$84	whole

So: whole snapper at $25/kg is not the bargain it looks like — by the time you've removed the head, frame and skin you're at about $60/kg of edible flesh, no cheaper than the fillet counter. Buy whole for freshness, for the frame and head (stock, fish-head curry, collars), or when you want to control the fillet cut — not for the sticker price. Gemfish is the one clear exception, and species with oversized heads (gurnard, john dory) are worse than the 42% rule suggests.

Other price notes

• Salmon sides beat fillets: ~$69/kg for a 1.2 kg side vs ~$80/kg in 360 g packs.
• Buy the smaller fish of any given species — often cheaper per kg and lower in mercury.

---

Trend — is fish getting dearer?

Yes, and it just hit a record. Stats NZ's weighted-average retail price for fresh fish reached NZ$49.62/kg in July 2026 — the highest value in the series since it began in February 2007. The ratio column below is against the window's low point, December 2024.

Month	NZ$/kg	MoM	YoY	× Dec-2024 low
Sep 2024	45.77	—	+5.2%	1.05×
Dec 2024	43.72	−2.7%	+1.4%	1.00× — floor
Mar 2025	44.78	−0.5%	+3.2%	1.02×
Jun 2025	44.64	+0.2%	+0.7%	1.02×
Sep 2025	47.11	+1.8%	+2.9%	1.08×
Dec 2025	46.61	−1.0%	+6.6%	1.07×
Mar 2026	48.22	+0.8%	+7.7%	1.10×
Apr 2026	47.93	−0.6%	+8.7%	1.10×
May 2026	47.68	−0.5%	+7.0%	1.09×
Jun 2026	49.46	+3.7%	+10.8%	1.13×
Jul 2026	🏆 49.62	+0.3%	+8.3%	1.13× — record

Trough to peak: $43.72 → $49.62, +13.5% in 19 months. June 2026's +3.7% is the single biggest monthly move in the whole window.

🔀 The crossover — fish and red meat swapped places in mid-2026

Through 2025, red meat inflated hard while seafood was almost flat. In Q2 2026 that inverted.

Month	🐟 Fish & seafood YoY	🥩 Meat & poultry YoY	Food, all groups	Who's inflating faster
Sep 2024	+3.4%	+1.0%	+1.2%	🐟 fish
Mar 2025	+1.9%	+6.0%	+3.5%	🥩 meat
Jun 2025	+0.5%	+7.6%	+4.6%	🥩 meat — widest gap, 15×
Dec 2025	+3.5%	+8.1%	+4.0%	🥩 meat
Mar 2026	+4.5%	+7.8%	+3.4%	🥩 meat, narrowing
Jun 2026	+7.7%	+5.9%	+2.5%	🔀 fish overtakes
Jul 2026	+6.0%	+2.6%	+1.9%	🐟 fish, by 2.3×

What it means for a buyer: fish is still the expensive protein in level terms and always was — but the direction flipped in Q2 2026. Over two years, fresh fish is up +8.4% while lamb chops are up +32.3% and beef mince +24.3%, so against red meat fish has quietly become relatively cheaper. Against chicken it has become dramatically dearer.

Fish against the other proteins — July 2026

Protein	NZ$/kg	YoY	2-yr change	g protein per NZ$ †
Fresh fish (Stats NZ basket)	49.62	+8.3%	+8.4%	3.8
Beef porterhouse / sirloin	44.56	+5.6%	+21.6%	4.6
Roasting lamb & hogget	24.91	+8.7%	+42.9%	6.8
Beef mince	24.41	+11.1%	+24.3%	7.6
Lamb chops	24.23	+12.3%	+32.3%	7.0
Pork loin chops	16.71	−0.4%	−2.5%	12.6
Chicken breast	14.80	−4.0%	−5.4%	🏆 15.6
Frozen fish fillets (per 500 g pack)	8.95/pack	+1.2%	+4.1%	—
Red cod fillet (this doc, today)	20.00	—	—	8.5
Kahawai fillet (this doc, today)	≤26.94	—	—	≥7.9

On protein per dollar alone, chicken breast beats every fish here — 15.6 g/$ against red cod's 8.5 g/$, 1.8× — and chicken got cheaper (−4.0%) while fish got dearer (+8.3%). Fish is not, and has never been, the cheap way to buy protein. What fish buys that chicken cannot is omega-3: chicken breast delivers essentially none, king salmon delivers a week's worth in one serve. If omega-3 is not why you're buying it, buy chicken.

† Protein-per-dollar for the meat rows uses standard raw-weight protein values (chicken breast 23.1 g/100 g, beef mince 18.6 g, lamb 17 g, pork loin 21 g, fish basket ~19 g), not Stats NZ data — Stats NZ publishes no nutrition. Treat those four as indicative. Bone-in and skin-on cuts would score worse on edible yield than the raw $/kg suggests.

Why the curve bends — the dated events

Two independent supply-side shocks land in the same six months of 2026 — a fuel shock and a stock collapse — which is what the acceleration from +4.5% YoY (Mar 2026) to +7.7% (Jun 2026) is made of.

1. 28 February 2026 — the fuel shock. Stats NZ dates it precisely: "Recent conflict in the Middle East began on 28 February 2026." The Strait of Hormuz closed to shipping and Brent peaked around US$138/bbl in early April. Over two months NZ petrol rose +33.6% and diesel +94.9%; diesel was still +34.9% YoY in July. Fishing is diesel-intensive both at sea and in the chilled distribution chain.
2. 12 March 2026 — the industry says so out loud. Seafood New Zealand chief executive Lisa Futschek: "The cost of marine fuel has increased sharply since the conflict escalated, which directly impacts the cost of operations in New Zealand… These are costs the industry is having to absorb in the short term, but inevitably they will place pressure on prices that consumers see." Three months later fresh fish posted +3.7% in June 2026, the biggest monthly rise in the window. The mechanism is sourced; the attribution of that specific month to that specific cause is still mine, not Stats NZ's.
3. 24 June – 5 July 2026 — tarakihi runs out. Fisheries NZ opened the October 2026 sustainability round across 22 stocks, proposing east-coast tarakihi commercial cuts of 39–78% and west-coast cuts of 55–84%. The east coast stock sits at roughly 7.7% of unfished biomass — 10% is the conventional threshold for functional collapse. Minister Shane Jones: "warming waters are likely to have impacted the number of juvenile fish." Unlike most NZ fish, ~95% of tarakihi is eaten domestically, so a cut lands on the local counter rather than on exports. Decisions were due before 1 October 2026 — after every price in this doc.
4. Q2 2026 — the protein-demand rotation. On 24 August 2026 Infometrics' Brad Olsen attributed rising global protein prices to US demand — "demand from the US is still strong because of GLP-1s" — and Westpac's Satish Ranchhod cited "strong demands, both onshore and offshore" plus "big increases in production costs". The same force that ran red meat up through 2025, arriving at the fish counter a year later.

The structural story underneath

The 2026 spike sits on top of a much older trend. Fresh fish was NZ$28.44/kg in January 2014 and is NZ$49.62/kg now — +74% in 12.5 years, well ahead of wages. The standing explanations, none of which the 2026 events changed:

Driver	The number
Most of the catch leaves the country	~80% of NZ's commercial catch is exported — the domestic counter competes with export buyers
Quota competition	Brett Sellers, Foodstuffs North Island: "Competition for quota pushes prices up"
An old, thirsty fleet	"Most boats are more than 50 years old. They use a lot of diesel fuel" — which is exactly why the 2026 fuel shock transmitted so hard
Cost to land it	Dr Jeremy Helson, then CEO of Seafood NZ: "the cost of getting it out of the water and to the customers is crippling"

---

Links

The three finalists

	🟩 Kahawai	🟦 Red cod	🟪 King salmon
Species page	Seafood NZ — Kahawai	Seafood NZ — Red cod	Seafood NZ — King salmon
Buy it (live price)	Sanford & Sons — fillets · Theo's — whole	Solander — fillets & whole	Theo's — fillet · Sanford — side
Mercury band	MPI — 3–4 serves/week	MPI — 3–4 serves/week	MPI — unrestricted
Cooking notes	Fishingmag — handling kahawai	Fishingmag — red cod eating quality	NZ King Salmon

The reference sources you'll want to check yourself

Question	Go here
How many serves a week can I eat?	MPI — Mercury levels in fish · FSANZ — Mercury in fish
What's the mercury number for species X?	FDA — Mercury in commercial fish, 1990–2012
Where does the 112 µg/week come from?	JECFA — methylmercury PTWI 1.6 µg/kg bw/wk
How much omega-3 is in that fish?	Healthy Food Guide — omega-3 in seafood
NZ nutrition panels per species	Moana NZ species spec sheets · Seafood NZ species index
Is fish getting dearer? (live)	Stats NZ — Food Price Index · Figure.NZ — retail price of fresh fish
Today's prices	Theo's Fisheries · Sanford & Sons · Solander Gourmet Seafood

If the whole point is omega-3 per dollar, canned sardines deliver 1.2 g per 100 g at supermarket prices — comfortably beating king salmon on cost per gram of omega-3 and beating everything here on convenience. Whole jack mackerel at $16.95/kg is kahawai's cheaper cousin from the same high-omega-3 family. Neither is on the fish counter, which is exactly why nobody weighs them.

---

The MPI mercury bands in full

MPI's advice is aimed primarily at pregnant women, women planning pregnancy, and young children; the general population eating fish more than four times a week should pick from the unrestricted list for some of those meals. The regulatory ceiling under the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code is 0.5 mg/kg for most fish and 1.0 mg/kg for the listed predatory species — both set on the edible portion.

✅ No restriction

Anchovy, arrow squid, barracouta, blue cod, brill/turbot, eel, elephant fish, flounder, gurnard, hoki, john dory, monkfish, mussels, orange perch, oysters, parore, salmon (farmed), scallops, skipjack tuna, sole, southern blue whiting, surf clams, tarakihi, toothfish, warehou, whitebait/īnanga.

⚠️ 3–4 serves per week

Albacore tuna, alfonsino, bass, bluenose, gemfish, ghost shark, hake, hāpuku/groper, kahawai, kingfish, Lake Taupō trout, ling, mackerel, orange roughy, red cod, rig, rock lobster, snapper, trevally.

🛑 1 serve per 1–2 weeks (and nothing else fishy that week)

Dogfish (excluding rig), school shark/greyboy/tope, striped marlin, southern bluefin tuna, swordfish/broadbill, cardinal fish, trout from geothermal lakes (Rotomahana and similar).

Moki appears on none of the three lists. That is not the same as "safe to eat freely" — it means MPI has never classified it. Moki is a mid-sized inshore fish that feeds on crustaceans and worms rather than other fish, which is the profile of a low-mercury species, but that is reasoning by analogy, not a measurement. This doc scores it conservatively in the 3–4/week band.

FSANZ places orange roughy and catfish at 1 serve per week, stricter than the NZ list above. The measured concentration (0.571 mg/kg → 76% of the weekly allowance in a single serve) backs FSANZ. When two agencies disagree, take the cautious number.

Canned tuna is the reassuring exception: it's made from small, young skipjack, and FSANZ has calculated a 95 g snack can per day is safe for all groups assuming no other fish.

---

---

Background

Skip this unless you're going deep — none of it changes the decision above.

Species notes

Kahawai — long dismissed as a "bait fish", which is why it's cheap. Oily, strongly flavoured, superb smoked or as ceviche if bled and iced immediately. Top of the CP table at 8.7/10 and the best all-round value on this list at ~NZ$27/kg filleted.

Red cod (Pseudophycis bachus, hoka) — the cheapest protein on the board at NZ$20/kg, and the most unfairly maligned fish in New Zealand. Delicate, moist, low-oil white flesh that flakes easily; a source of biotin, iodine and phosphorus and a good source of niacin, B12 and selenium. The catch: the flesh is watery and soft and tends to fall apart in the pan, which is why anglers who chase snapper and blue cod dismiss it as poor eating. The fix is trivial — pat the fillets dry with paper towels, salt them, and refrigerate a couple of hours; it firms up and cooks beautifully. Excellent smoked. Caught inshore by trawl in the Canterbury Bight and off Westland at 100–300 m, mainly November to June. Buy it fresh and cook it the same day — it does not keep.

Monkfish (giant stargazer, Kathetostoma giganteum) — not the northern-hemisphere Lophius. Firm, succulent, pearly white, low oil; holds together in curries, chowders and on the barbecue where flakier fish fall apart. A source of biotin and iodine, a good source of niacin and B12. Trawled mainly around the South Island. Unrestricted on mercury and NZ$23/kg cheaper than blue cod for a comparable firm texture.

Moki (blue moki, Latridopsis ciliaris) — the most useful fish most people never buy: 20.9 g protein per 100 g — level with trevally, beaten only by kahawai — for $28.95/kg, giving 7.2 g protein per dollar, fourth-best on the board behind red cod, kahawai and trevally. Well-textured flesh with plenty of fatty content around the skin, firm enough to hold its shape in a curry, casserole or on the barbecue, and it takes smoke well. A source of biotin, iodine, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium; a good source of niacin, B12, vitamin D and selenium. Caught year-round off the east coast from the Bay of Plenty to Kaikōura by trawl and set net, typically 2–3 kg. The asterisk: MPI has never classified it for mercury, so its 4.7 CP here assumes the 3–4 serves/week discount; if it is genuinely a low-mercury inshore fish, as its diet suggests, it is a 5.2 and the third-best buy on the board.

Tarakihi — medium-firm, delicately sweet, low oil, suits every cooking method. The default weeknight fish, and unrestricted on mercury. But the stock is in trouble: the east coast fishery sits at roughly 7.7% of unfished biomass (10% is the conventional functional-collapse threshold) and Fisheries NZ proposed commercial cuts of 39–78% east coast and 55–84% west coast in the October 2026 round. Around 95% of tarakihi is eaten domestically, so those cuts land on the local counter — expect its ≤$49/kg to be the first price on this list to move.

Hoki — the budget option at ~NZ$22/kg and the backbone of NZ's crumbed-fish products. Delicate, slightly sweet, medium flake, but low in protein and prone to falling apart. Best crumbed, battered or in a curry.

Gurnard — very mild, firm, holds its shape, absorbs whatever you put with it. Underrated, unrestricted, and often the cheapest of the "nice" white fish.

Blue cod — the priciest fillet on the board at NZ$84/kg — and with Sanford out of stock today, $84 is the only price going, and last on CP at 1.3/10. Mild, flaky, "chicken of the sea". Unrestricted on mercury, so the premium is purely flavour and scarcity.

Snapper — semi-firm, coarse flakes, excellent whole and smoked, and the best white fish for raw preparation. Note it is not unrestricted: 3–4 serves a week, and the NZ concentration data suggests two is more prudent.

King salmon — the highest oil content of any salmon species, hence the 3.15 g omega-3. Vitamins A, B12 and D, plus niacin, thiamine, selenium, iodine and astaxanthin. Farmed, so both unrestricted on mercury and the only fish here that covers a week's omega-3 in one meal — which is what the NZ$63–80/kg is really buying.

---

---

Caveats

The things that would make a careful reader distrust this doc if I left them out:

1. These are not supermarket prices. All three retailers sit at the specialist/premium end. Woolworths, New World and Pak'nSave are generally cheaper for the common species, and that is where most people actually buy fish. Their sites block automated access, so they are not represented. The Stats NZ national average of $49.46/kg is the sanity check.
2. Every Sanford figure is a ceiling, not a price. Packs are sold as "360 g minimum" (800 g for whole fish) — $20.60 ÷ 0.36 kg gives $57/kg only if the pack weighs exactly 360 g. A 450 g pack is really $46/kg. Marked ≤ throughout, and protein-per-dollar for those species is correspondingly a floor (≥).
3. The winner's headline advantage rests on an estimate. Kahawai's omega-3 is inferred from its 8.6 g total fat and from NZ sources grouping it with jack mackerel and grey mullet — there is no published EPA+DHA figure for it. At the bottom of the 2.2–3.0 g range its CP drops from 8.7 to about 7.4; it still leads, but the margin is softer than one decimal place suggests.
4. Eleven of the fifteen species have no NZ mercury measurement, and moki has no MPI classification at all. Their "3–4 serves a week" and "unrestricted" labels are MPI's classification, not a measurement reproduced here. Read those cells as bands.
5. The FDA means are 1990–2012 — a 14-year-old sampling window, and mercury in some stocks has shifted since.
6. The NZ snapper figure is from 1975 and skewed toward larger fish. 0.34 mg/kg is a ceiling, not a current verdict — but it is the only NZ-measured inshore number available, which is why it is here at all.
7. The whole-fish mercury column is estimated at ~0.7× the fillet. The direction is well established; no whole-fish measurements exist for NZ inshore species, so the magnitude is indicative only. Nothing in the doc's conclusions depends on it.
8. The CP score is my own composite, not an official metric. The formula is shown so you can reweight it — shift the protein:omega-3 weighting from 50:50 to 80:20 and red cod wins instead. That is a legitimate reweighting if you don't care about omega-3.
9. The cooking-suitability ✅/❌ grid is judgement, not measurement — drawn from Seafood NZ and Moana NZ species descriptions. Everything else in the feature matrix is measured or regulated.
10. Blue cod's price moved during this update. Sanford's blue cod fillets are out of stock today and their live listing now reads as an 800 g pack, which would imply $28.75/kg — implausible against Theo's $83.95. Resolved in favour of Theo's measured $84, which drops blue cod's CP from 1.7 to 1.3 and below swordfish. If Sanford restocks at a genuinely lower per-kg figure, that row moves back.
11. The Stats NZ benchmark is index-derived, not a till receipt. Their "weighted average price" was priced in June 2006 and carried forward by applying index movements ever since. It is reliable for trend — which is what the Trend section uses it for — and weaker as a claim about what any one shop charges today. It is also a basket blending snapper, tarakihi, gurnard, salmon and others; no species-level series exists.
12. The trend stops at July 2026. August data is published 18 September 2026, ten days after this doc. Stats NZ also corrected the January 2026 FPI on 17 March 2026 — the figures here come from the July release and incorporate that correction.
13. The fuel → fish-price mechanism is sourced; the June attribution is not. Seafood NZ stated in March 2026 that marine fuel costs would "place pressure on prices that consumers see", so the channel is on the record. What is not on the record is that June 2026's +3.7% was caused by it — Stats NZ names no driver for fresh fish anywhere in this period (their meat/poultry/fish commentary is entirely beef-led). Treat the month-level attribution as my inference.
14. MPI and Fisheries NZ sit behind a WAF that blocks automated reading. The tarakihi catch-cut and stock-biomass figures are quoted from news mirrors, not from the MPI decision documents themselves, and the October 2024 / April 2025 quota rounds could not be verified at all. Verify anything quota-related in a real browser before relying on it.
15. The protein-per-dollar figures for meat are indicative. Stats NZ publishes prices, not nutrition, so those four rows join two different sources and use standard raw-weight protein values. The fish figures in the main tables are NZ Food Files and do not have this problem.
16. One retailer is not a market. Theo's and Sanford disagree by up to 30% on identical species, and neither is a national average.
17. This is general information, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, planning pregnancy or feeding young children, follow MPI's advice directly rather than a CP score.

Sources

MPI — mercury in fish · FSANZ — mercury · FDA — mercury 1990–2012 · JECFA — MeHg PTWI · Metallomics — MeHg binding in tuna muscle · Liver vs muscle Hg distribution · Lescord et al. — %MeHg by size and species · USGS — whole-body vs muscle Hg · Cooking methods vs MeHg · Mozaffarian & Rimm, JAMA 2006 · Seychelles Child Development Study · Selenium health benefit values · NZ snapper mercury, 1975 · Healthy Food Guide — omega-3 · Moana NZ spec sheets · Seafood NZ species index · Stats NZ Food Price Index · Stats NZ Selected price indexes: July 2026 · RNZ — which foods became less affordable, 24 Aug 2026 · Fisheries NZ — Oct 2026 sustainability round · Stats NZ — economic impacts of the Middle East conflict · Seafood NZ on marine fuel costs, 12 Mar 2026 · Tarakihi east coast stock collapse, Jul 2026 · RNZ — why does fish cost so much · Figure.NZ — fresh fish retail price · Theo's Fisheries · Sanford & Sons · Solander Gourmet Seafood · Fishingmag — red cod

Retailer prices fetched 8 September 2026; Stats NZ series read from the July 2026 release CSV. (Theo's Fisheries, Sanford & Sons, Solander Gourmet Seafood). All prices NZ$, GST inclusive, per kg. Nutrition figures are raw fillet, NZ Food Files. Mercury edible-part concentrations are FDA means unless marked; whole-fish figures are estimated at ~0.7× and are indicative only.