What a Gram of Seafood Protein Really Costs, From Canned Mackerel to Cooked Lobster
Credit: Daily Vitality
National Lobster Day falls on September 25, and it's the one day of the year when a lobster roll feels less like a splurge and more like a tradition. Lobster rolls, butter-poached tails and lobster mac and cheese all show up at once. Many of us enjoy it while quietly wondering what we're paying for.
Here's a way to find out. The usual question is whether a food is expensive. A more useful one is what a gram of protein from that food costs. When you compare seafood by price per pound, lobster looks outrageous and canned fish looks like a bargain. When you compare it by price per gram of protein, the picture gets more interesting. A food's water content, its cooking state and the way it's sold can all change the answer, and one shellfish turns out to cost more per gram of protein than lobster does.
Below you'll find 12 seafoods ranked by what a gram of their protein costs, counting down from the most expensive to the best value. We built the table ourselves from federal price and nutrition data and adjusted it for inflation, and we've explained every step so you can check the math. This is about price and measurement, not about which fish is healthiest. Think of it as a shopping lens you can use the next time you're standing at the seafood counter.
Our prices come from the USDA Economic Research Service's Purchase to Plate National Average Prices, a public database built from retail grocery scanner data. It gives a price for every 100 edible grams of a food, which means shells and bones are already excluded. The newest public edition covers 2017 and 2018. The agency says its next edition, covering 2021 to 2023, isn't expected before spring 2027, so 2017/18 is the most recent national, food-by-food price set available.
Not every price in that file is measured the same way. Of the 181 seafood rows in the 2017/18 edition, only 22 are priced directly from scanner data. The rest are either imputed from similar foods or modeled from recipes. We kept only the directly priced rows. That's why cod, tilapia, catfish and pollock aren't here: their prices in the file are modeled rather than measured. From the 22 measured rows, we also set aside anything coated or fried, smoked, dried and salted, roe (including caviar), canned anchovies (which are used more like a seasoning than a protein serving) and duplicate forms of the same species. That left 12.
Prices from 2017 and 2018 needed updating, so we used the Consumer Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For the nine fresh or cooked items, we used the BLS index for fresh fish and seafood. It averaged 180.192 across the 24 months of 2017 and 2018 and stood at 238.000 in August 2026, which gives a multiplier of 1.3208. For the three canned items, the processed fish and seafood index gives a multiplier of 1.3014 (145.560 to 189.437). These are category-level adjustments, so they assume each species moved in step with its category, which is a reasonable estimate rather than a measured species price.
Protein and sodium come from USDA's FoodData Central, matched to the price row at the same preparation state: raw with raw, cooked with cooked, canned and drained with canned. That matters more than you might expect. Cooking drives off water, so blue mussels jump from 11.9 grams of protein per 100 grams raw to 23.8 grams cooked. We list each record ID so anyone can look it up. Mercury figures are FDA's published mean values, shown as plain numbers for context.
The math is simple once the inputs are set. We divided the adjusted price per 100 grams by the grams of protein per 100 grams to get dollars per gram of protein. To make that easier to picture, we also show what a 25-gram serving of protein costs.
*FDA doesn't list jack mackerel, the species in the canned record. The figure shown is FDA's value for chub (Pacific) mackerel, the closest species it does list.
These are national grocery averages, not restaurant prices, and they reflect what shoppers paid across brands and pack sizes. Your local store, the season and sales will move the numbers. The ranking is most useful for how the foods compare with each other, not as a price you can expect to see on a shelf.
It's natural to expect lobster at the expensive end of this list, so oysters at number 12 might come as a surprise. Per gram of meat, oysters are actually the cheaper of the two. After adjusting for inflation, raw oysters average about $2.75 per 100 grams, less than half of lobster's $6.71.
The difference is what's in that meat. A raw eastern oyster is about 89% water, according to the USDA FoodData Central record, and it has just 5.71 grams of protein per 100 grams. So a gram of oyster protein costs about $0.48, which is 14.5 times the cheapest item on this list. Reaching 25 grams of protein would take roughly 438 grams of oyster meat, at a cost of about $12.
None of this makes oysters a poor choice. People order a dozen on the half shell for the briny, silky, ocean-fresh experience, not for the protein. The math simply shows that the oyster premium pays for texture, freshness and occasion rather than for protein.
By the numbers: $2.75 per 100 g (about $12.49 per pound of meat) · 5.71 g protein · $0.482 per gram of protein · $12.06 per 25 g of protein · 85 mg sodium · FDA mean mercury 0.012 ppm.
Now for the guest of honor. Cooked lobster meat averages about $6.71 per 100 grams in August 2026 dollars, or roughly $30.45 per pound of meat. It's the highest price per gram of meat on the list. What keeps it out of the top spot is that it's a genuinely good source of protein, with 19 grams per 100 grams cooked.
That makes a gram of lobster protein cost about $0.35, or $8.83 for a 25-gram serving. Compared with canned mackerel at number 1, that's the lobster premium: 10.6 times as much for the same gram of protein. Against the middle of this list, lobster costs about three times as much.
Lobster also has the most sodium of the 12, at 486 milligrams per 100 grams before any butter or seasoning is added. For mercury, the FDA's table of commercial fish and shellfish lists a mean of 0.107 parts per million for northern (American) lobster.
What does the premium buy? The sweet, tender meat, the hands-on ritual of cracking a shell, and a sense of occasion that is hard to put a price on. If lobster is your celebration food, this number tells you what the celebration costs, and nothing more.
By the numbers: $6.71 per 100 g · 19.00 g protein · $0.353 per gram of protein · $8.83 per 25 g of protein · 486 mg sodium · FDA mean mercury 0.107 ppm.
Mussels have a reputation as a budget-friendly shellfish, and by the pound they are. Raw mussels average about $2.43 per 100 grams after adjustment, which is about $11 per pound of meat. Their weakness in this ranking is the same as the oyster's: raw mussel meat is roughly 81% water, with 11.9 grams of protein per 100 grams.
That puts a gram of mussel protein at about $0.20, or $5.09 for a 25-gram serving. Keep in mind that the price in the federal file is for raw mussels, so that's the record we matched. Steaming drives off liquid and roughly doubles the protein per gram of cooked meat, but it doesn't change what you paid at the counter.
There's a nice lesson in that. Water weight is one of the quiet reasons some seafood looks cheap on the price tag and less cheap on a protein basis.
For more on how heat changes what's in your food, see our guide to the foods that get more nutritious when you cook them.
Raw vs. Cooked: The Foods That Get More Nutritious When You Heat Them
By the numbers: $2.43 per 100 g · 11.90 g protein · $0.204 per gram of protein · $5.09 per 25 g of protein · 286 mg sodium · FDA mercury value not listed for mussels.
Crayfish, or crawfish if you're from the Gulf Coast, sit in the middle of this list, in a spot that may surprise anyone who has picked through a mountain of shells at a summer boil. Because the federal price is for edible grams, all that shell is already accounted for. Boiled or steamed crayfish meat averages about $2.45 per 100 grams in 2026 dollars.
Cooked crayfish provides 16.77 grams of protein per 100 grams, so a gram of protein costs about $0.15, and a 25-gram serving costs about $3.65. That's less than half of lobster's cost for the same protein, from a close crustacean cousin with a similar sweet flavor.
Crayfish is also one of the lower-sodium items here, at 94 milligrams per 100 grams before seasoning, though a traditional boil adds plenty of salt and spice. The FDA's mean mercury value for crayfish is 0.033 parts per million.
By the numbers: $2.45 per 100 g · 16.77 g protein · $0.146 per gram of protein · $3.65 per 25 g of protein · 94 mg sodium · FDA mean mercury 0.033 ppm.
Raw salmon fillets are one of the most familiar items at the seafood counter, and they land right in the middle of the ranking. Adjusted for inflation, raw salmon averages about $2.60 per 100 grams, or about $11.79 per pound.
For protein, we used USDA's record for raw farmed Atlantic salmon at 20.42 grams per 100 grams. The federal food code behind this price actually blends 75% farmed Atlantic with 25% pink salmon. Pink salmon has almost the same protein (20.50 grams), so the choice changes the result by less than 1%. That puts a gram of salmon protein at about $0.13, or $3.18 for a 25-gram serving.
Raw salmon is also one of the lowest-sodium items on the list, at 59 milligrams per 100 grams. The FDA's mean mercury value for fresh or frozen salmon is 0.022 parts per million.
Curious how salmon compares on calories instead of cost? We ranked 50 foods that way.
The Best Protein Per Calorie: 50 Foods Ranked
By the numbers: $2.60 per 100 g · 20.42 g protein · $0.127 per gram of protein · $3.18 per 25 g of protein · 59 mg sodium · FDA mean mercury 0.022 ppm.
Fresh tuna costs more per pound than raw salmon, at about $2.91 per 100 grams in 2026 dollars, or about $13.20 per pound. It still edges ahead of salmon in this ranking, because raw yellowfin is leaner and packs 24.4 grams of protein into every 100 grams.
That makes a gram of tuna protein cost about $0.12, or $2.98 for a 25-gram serving. It's a good example of the pattern running through this list: when a seafood carries more protein per bite, a higher price tag doesn't always mean a higher price per gram.
Raw yellowfin has the least sodium of all 12 items, at 45 milligrams per 100 grams. It also has the highest mercury figure in our table: the FDA lists a mean of 0.354 parts per million for fresh or frozen yellowfin. We show that number for context only. The FDA's own consumer guidance is the place to go for advice on how often to eat it.
By the numbers: $2.91 per 100 g · 24.40 g protein · $0.119 per gram of protein · $2.98 per 25 g of protein · 45 mg sodium · FDA mean mercury 0.354 ppm.
Octopus has become a menu favorite, grilled until charred at the edges and tender inside, and it has a useful quality for this ranking. Steamed octopus is only about 60% water, so it packs 29.82 grams of protein into every 100 grams, the most of any food on our list.
That density offsets a relatively high price. Steamed octopus averages about $3.26 per 100 grams after adjustment, about $14.79 per pound, and still comes in at around $0.11 per gram of protein, or $2.73 for a 25-gram serving. By the pound it costs more than raw tuna, and per gram of protein it costs less.
A note on how we chose this row. The federal price file lists octopus twice: once as "cooked, not specified" and once as "steamed." We used the steamed row. The current USDA recipe behind the not-specified code is breaded and fried, and the steamed row matches USDA's plain cooked octopus record. Octopus is fairly salty on its own, at 460 milligrams of sodium per 100 grams. The FDA mercury table doesn't include octopus.
By the numbers: $3.26 per 100 g · 29.82 g protein · $0.109 per gram of protein · $2.73 per 25 g of protein · 460 mg sodium · FDA mercury value not listed for octopus.
Most people meet squid as fried calamari, but this ranking uses plain steamed or boiled squid, which keeps the coating out of the math. At about $1.81 per 100 grams in 2026 dollars, or about $8.19 per pound, it's one of the most affordable items here by weight.
USDA's older Standard Reference database doesn't include a plain cooked squid record, so we used the newer survey record for cooked calamari. It's mostly squid prepared by moist heat, with a small amount of fat and salt. It lists 19.36 grams of protein per 100 grams, which puts a gram of squid protein at about $0.09, or $2.33 for a 25-gram serving.
Squid has 270 milligrams of sodium per 100 grams in that record, and the FDA's mean mercury value for squid is a low 0.024 parts per million. For anyone who enjoys its mild flavor and springy texture, it's the best-value fresh or cooked item in the ranking apart from herring.
If you're weighing where to shop for items like this, our store-by-store comparison is a helpful companion.
Which Grocery Stores Offer the Best Nutrition Per Dollar?
By the numbers: $1.81 per 100 g · 19.36 g protein · $0.093 per gram of protein · $2.33 per 25 g of protein · 270 mg sodium · FDA mean mercury 0.024 ppm.
Canned salmon is where the pantry starts to win. At about $2.16 per 100 grams after adjustment, it's cheaper than raw salmon, and draining the can concentrates the protein. USDA's record for canned pink salmon, drained, without skin and bones, lists 24.62 grams of protein per 100 grams, compared with about 20 grams for raw fillets.
Together, those two differences put canned salmon at about $0.09 per gram of protein, or $2.19 for a 25-gram serving. That's about 69% of what the same protein costs from raw salmon at number 8.
Canning adds salt: this record has 378 milligrams of sodium per 100 grams, compared with 59 for raw salmon. The FDA's mean mercury value for canned salmon is 0.014 parts per million, one of the lowest in the table.
We've also ranked canned fish on a different measure, if you'd like to compare shelf options side by side.
Canned Fish Ranked: Omega-3s Per Dollar, Mercury Per Serving
By the numbers: $2.16 per 100 g · 24.62 g protein · $0.088 per gram of protein · $2.19 per 25 g of protein · 378 mg sodium · FDA mean mercury 0.014 ppm.
Herring doesn't get much attention in American kitchens, which may be part of why it's such good value. Cooked herring averages about $1.81 per 100 grams in 2026 dollars, and USDA's cooked Atlantic herring record has 23.03 grams of protein per 100 grams.
That works out to about $0.08 per gram of protein, or $1.96 for a 25-gram serving, making herring the least expensive protein on this list that doesn't come from a can. It's rich and full-flavored, with a texture somewhere between sardines and mackerel.
One caveat on matching. The federal price covers herring "cooked, not specified as to cooking method," and we paired it with USDA's plain dry-heat record, which lists 115 milligrams of sodium per 100 grams. Recipes that bread, fry or cure herring will change both the protein and the sodium. The FDA's mean mercury value for herring is 0.078 parts per million.
For a full day of eating built around budget proteins like this one, see our costed meal plans.
Can You Hit 100g of Protein a Day on $5? Meal Plans Costed to the Cent
By the numbers: $1.81 per 100 g · 23.03 g protein · $0.078 per gram of protein · $1.96 per 25 g of protein · 115 mg sodium · FDA mean mercury 0.078 ppm.
Sardines are a pantry classic for good reason. Canned in oil, they average about $1.73 per 100 grams after adjustment, or about $7.83 per pound. Drained, with the soft edible bones left in, USDA's Atlantic sardine record lists 24.62 grams of protein per 100 grams.
That puts a gram of sardine protein at about $0.07, or $1.75 for a 25-gram serving. You'd get the same amount of protein as from a lobster serving for about a fifth of the cost.
Sardines have 307 milligrams of sodium per 100 grams in this record, lower than canned salmon or canned mackerel. The FDA's mean mercury value for sardines is 0.013 parts per million.
By the numbers: $1.73 per 100 g · 24.62 g protein · $0.070 per gram of protein · $1.75 per 25 g of protein · 307 mg sodium · FDA mean mercury 0.013 ppm.
The best value on the list is also one of the least glamorous: canned mackerel. At about $0.77 per 100 grams in 2026 dollars, or roughly $3.51 per pound, it's by far the least expensive item on the list. USDA's record for canned jack mackerel, drained, has 23.19 grams of protein per 100 grams.
That puts a gram of mackerel protein at about $0.03, or $0.83 for a 25-gram serving. Every other number in this article is measured against it. Lobster costs 10.6 times as much per gram of protein, and raw oysters cost 14.5 times as much. Even sardines, the runner-up, cost about twice as much.
Canned mackerel does bring 379 milligrams of sodium per 100 grams, the highest of the three canned items. The FDA table doesn't list jack mackerel. For the closest species it does list, chub (Pacific) mackerel, it gives a mean of 0.088 parts per million.
For a wider view beyond the seafood aisle, our main ranking puts 25 everyday foods on the same scale.
The Best Protein Per Dollar: 25 Foods Ranked
By the numbers: $0.77 per 100 g · 23.19 g protein · $0.033 per gram of protein · $0.83 per 25 g of protein · 379 mg sodium · FDA mean mercury 0.088 ppm (chub mackerel, nearest listed species).
A common assumption is that frozen seafood is the steady, budget-friendly alternative to fresh. The national price data can't compare fresh and frozen prices species by species. What it can show is how fast each category's prices have risen, and the answer changes depending on the starting point.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics index for frozen fish and seafood goes back to December 1977. The fresh fish and seafood index starts in December 1997, so we set both to 100 in that month and followed them to August 2026.
Over the full 28 years, fresh seafood prices rose further, ending 24.3 index points ahead of frozen. Recent years tell a different story. Measured from the 2017–2018 average, the same period as our price data, frozen fish and seafood prices were up 40.8% by August 2026, while fresh prices were up 32.1%. If you set both indexes to 100 in January 2017, frozen stands at 143.5 today and fresh at 133.5. Frozen also jumped between July and August 2026, from 418.6 to 428.5 on its original scale.
So frozen seafood's price advantage has been getting smaller. Keep in mind that an index tracks price changes, not price levels. It shows that frozen prices have risen faster since 2017. It doesn't tell you whether a particular bag of frozen shrimp costs more or less than the fresh fillet next to it.
BLS published no index values for October 2025 because of the 2025 lapse in federal appropriations. The August readings in the table above aren't affected.
Put the whole list together, and a few patterns stand out. Three of the four best values come from a can. The two priciest proteins are shellfish, and oysters, not lobster, top the list. Foods that are mostly water, like raw oysters and mussels, look affordable by weight and costly by protein. Dense, lean options like octopus and tuna can overcome a high price tag.
None of this is a reason to give up a lobster roll on September 25. It simply gives you a clearer view of what you're paying for. The lobster premium, about ten times the cost of canned mackerel per gram of protein, buys flavor, texture and occasion. If protein per dollar is the goal on an ordinary Tuesday, the pantry shelf is hard to beat. If the goal is a celebration, you now know exactly what the celebration costs.
There's also a wider value mindset beyond seafood. We've applied it to nut butters, where added oils change the math in a similar way.
Nut Butters Ranked: Protein Per Dollar and the Added-Oil Tax
About the Author
Ryan May is a digital publishing leader with more than 25 years of experience turning complex information into clear, useful editorial work. At Daily Vitality, he focuses on evidence-led reporting about nutrition, fitness, healthy aging, and long-term wellbeing, informed by his own interests in cooking, yoga, cycling, and sustainable healthy habits.
Canned mackerel, by a wide margin. In our CPI-adjusted ranking, a gram of its protein costs about $0.033, and a 25-gram serving costs about $0.83. Canned sardines ($0.070 per gram) and cooked herring ($0.078 per gram) come next.
About 10.6 times as much. Cooked lobster works out to roughly $0.35 per gram of protein, compared with about $0.03 for canned mackerel. A 25-gram serving of protein costs about $8.83 from lobster and $0.83 from mackerel.
Raw oysters cost less per gram of meat than lobster, but they're about 89% water and have only 5.71 grams of protein per 100 grams. That lowers the protein you get for each dollar, so a gram of oyster protein costs about $0.48.
The prices come from USDA's 2017/18 national average prices, the most recent edition available. The next edition isn't expected before spring 2027. We adjusted the prices to August 2026 dollars with the BLS Consumer Price Index for fresh fish and seafood (a multiplier of 1.3208) and processed fish and seafood (a multiplier of 1.3014).
In the USDA price file, prices for those popular seafoods are imputed from similar foods or modeled from recipes rather than measured directly from scanner data. We included only directly measured prices, so the ranking stays on the firmest footing the free national data allows.
Yes, quite a bit. Cooking removes water, which concentrates protein. USDA lists raw blue mussels at 11.9 grams of protein per 100 grams and cooked mussels at 23.8 grams. Octopus goes from 14.91 grams raw to 29.82 grams cooked. That's why we matched each price to a nutrition record in the same state.
Probably not exactly. These are national averages of what grocery shoppers paid across brands and package sizes, adjusted with a category-wide inflation index. Regional prices, seasons, sales and restaurant markups will all differ. The ranking is most useful for comparing the foods with each other.
In these USDA records, yes. The three canned items have 307 to 379 milligrams of sodium per 100 grams, compared with 45 milligrams for raw tuna and 59 milligrams for raw salmon. Cooked lobster, at 486 milligrams, has the most sodium of all 12 items.
Since 2017, yes. Measured from the 2017–2018 average, frozen fish and seafood prices were up 40.8% by August 2026, while fresh prices were up 32.1%. Over the longer period since December 1997, fresh prices rose further.
They're FDA's published mean mercury concentrations, in parts per million, from its table of commercial fish and shellfish. We show them as context only. They range from 0.012 for oysters to 0.354 for fresh or frozen yellowfin tuna. The FDA table doesn't list octopus or mussels.
Adjusted to August 2026 dollars, the USDA average for cooked lobster meat works out to about $6.71 per 100 grams, or roughly $30.45 per pound of edible meat. That's a grocery average, not the price of a live lobster or a restaurant meal.
