They were discounted at 40% below the usual market price.
It was reported that no radioactive substances were detected in the seafood, which was caught during a fishing trial in waters more than 150 meters deep and 50 km away from Soma's coast.
The Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations said the trial sale took place to gauge demand and prices for the species, which were chosen for their low to no levels of radiation contamination during the monitoring of 163 marine species between April 2011 and June 2012.
The regional fishing industry was devastated by the triple-meltdown crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima No. 1 power plant. Annual sales sank to approximately ¥1.63 billion in 2011 from roughly ¥10.96 billion in 2010 after operations were suspended due to radiation worries following the disasters.
"Given that Japan has the highest seafood consumption rate in the world, understanding concentrations and assimilation in marine biota is an important task," Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist who led the Woods Hole study, wrote in the journal Environmental Science and Technology last fall.
Contaminated water still seeps from the nuclear plant -- about 12 tons of water containing radioactive strontium leaked in April, according to Tokyo Electric == and rain that falls on the area washes radioactive cesium into local rivers that empty into the sea. Traces of the cesium have reportedly been found in Pacific bluefin tuna, a species which migrates vast distances across the ocean
"The bottom line is that it's too early to tell how much the sea, or sea life, has been contaminated," said Yosuke Yamashiki, associate professor of environmental engineering at Kyoto University. "And the event is not over. Radioactive substances could enter the ocean for some time, perhaps even years. "
