How to: The MCS Good Fish Guide

View of the MCS Good Fish Guide main page

The Good Fish Guide by MCS: http://www.fishonline.org/information/Pocket+goodfishguide

We wanted to write a blog post on this helpful tool as it is incredibly useful and could be easily used by those shopping in the supermarket via the mobile app. This guide launched by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) is particularly excellent as it has a tool where you can type in the name of any edible seafood species and it will show you its sustainability rating. It is easy to use and to read and we believe it will highly benefit not only fish stocks over the world but also will change people's perceptions of which fish species they should be eating according to their sustainability rating.

The guide gives ratings from 1 to 5 as follows:

1= The most sustainably produced seafood (fish to eat)

2= Good, but some aspects of its production/management could be improved (fish to eat)

3= Should probably not be considered entirely sustainable at this time (should be eaten only occasionally)

4= Seafood is some way from being sustainable at this time (ideally seek alternatives)

5= Fish to be avoided (fish vulnerable to exploitation and/or overfished and/or caught using methods detrimental to other fish species or the environment).

The only drawback of the Good Fish Guide is that it can sometimes come up with a a large range of values for one fish species. 
  For instance, if you type 'cod' into the fish finder then it'll show you the values between 2 and 5, depending on where the fish is caught (see below). This is something that cannot be altered very easily and certainly isn't MCS's fault, as there will be a range of the sustainability of different cod fisheries around the world. This is why extra care must be taken to check the location in which the fish was caught. For example, if the cod you were looking to purchase was caught in West Scotland by a trawler, then this is given a value of 5. Whereas, if you were to purchase cod that was caught in Iceland by longline, this is given a rating of 2. 

This shows how complicated fish stocks are and that even if you think a particular fish is sustainable, its sustainability rating by MCS is completely dependent on the method of fishing and the area in which it was caught.

We think that this is a highly useful tool that anyone can use whilst shopping for ingredients for their favourite fishy suppers! It can quickly and simply suggest to you which fish out of those available to you are the best to eat and which should maybe be avoided.