Shrimp mislabeling is rampant in Gulf State restaurants, according to a new study. Shrimpers and consumers are paying the price.
Erin Williams sometimes wonders what the fast food workers must think of her when she rolls up to the drive-through window with 10 to-go bags of fried shrimp already in her car.
“I know they can smell the shrimp wafting into their place, and they’re like, ‘Man, hasn’t she had enough?’” said Williams, chief operating officer at food safety and technology company SeaD Consulting.
But with copious shrimp comes clarity of purpose. Williams is on a mission to find out whether restaurants are serving the local-caught, wild shrimp often advertised on menus along the Gulf Cast, or the farm-raised, imported kind that makes up more than 90 percent of the shrimp consumed in the U.S.
Misrepresenting the origin of shrimp on menus doesn’t just mislead customers who want to buy local and avoid shrimp raised with antibiotics and produced using slave labor and human trafficking. It hurts U.S. shrimpers, who are already feeling the squeeze. Farm-raised shrimp from countries such as India, Ecuador, Thailand, and Indonesia flooding the market has driven down the cost of wild U.S. shrimp, while the cost of diesel fuel relied on by shrimp boats has increased.
“You’re talking about a monumental collapse, an industry in peril,” said Justin Versaggi, a fourth generation shrimper based in Tampa, Florida. “They’re on our throat and it’s just a little bit of windpipe left sucking air.”
To assess shrimp authenticity, Williams and her colleagues took a special rapid genetic testing tool on the road, visiting more than 100 restaurants across the Gulf Coast and South Atlantic. Testers took the patented tool, developed in collaboration with researchers at Florida State University, to randomly selected restaurants in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Florida. They ordered shrimp as any customer would, while documenting the labeling on menus and signs, then testing the product. The investigation was funded by the Southern Shrimp Alliance, a collective of shrimp fishermen and processors and other industry stakeholders in shrimp-producing Southern states.
Captain Jimmy at Versaggi Shrimp Co.
·Adrian O'Farrill
The results? Pervasive shrimp fraud. In Biloxi, Mississippi, 80% of tested restaurants were serving farmed imported shrimp rather than local Gulf shrimp; in Galveston and Kemah, Texas, 59% of restaurants served farmed imported shrimp; and in Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg, Florida, a whopping 96% of seafood restaurants were serving farmed and imported shrimp.
Restaurants flagged by the study included both those that explicitly mislabeled the origin of their shrimp on menus, and those that implied the shrimp was local through imagery, decor, advertisements, or other language — think large photos of shrimp being pulled from the sea by fishermen or the use of phrases such as “Eat local! Try our seasonal catch of the day!”
“This is the first time there’s been a good, portable, affordable test for genetic testing on the origin of shrimp,” said Deborah Long, spokesperson for the Southern Shrimp Alliance.
SeaD’s testing in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was less alarming than the other cities: 29% of tested restaurants were found to be mislabeling shrimp there. That disparity didn’t come as a surprise to Williams. Unlike Florida, Texas, and Mississippi, Louisiana has a labeling law. Restaurants caught selling mislabeled shrimp or crawfish in the state can face fines as high as $50,000.
The Little David at Versaggi Shrimp Co.
·Adrian O'Farrill
“We’ve seen a significantly lower rate of non-Gulf shrimp served in restaurants [in Louisiana], which I think highlights the impact regulation and legislative efforts can have on ensuring an authentic and transparent supply chain,” said Williams.
While country of origin labeling rules overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture offer clarity for customers shopping in grocery stores, no such federal regulations exist for restaurants. States like Louisiana and Alabama have begun to address the problem with their own legislation, but enforcing those rules is another challenge. And it’s not just explicitly misleading labeling that’s a problem. Many of the seafood restaurants visited by Williams and her colleagues decorate and adorn their menus with nets, boats, and other waterfront imagery that suggests to consumers their shrimp is locally caught, all while serving only imports.
That kind of marketing came under fire by the Federal Trade Commission in September, when it issued a letter to some of the highest grossing seafood chain restaurants, including Red Lobster and Long John Silver’s to remind them of guidance against misleading customers.
Visual misrepresentation is especially frustrating to Versaggi as he tries to keep his business afloat.
“Why don’t they put pictures of ponds and child labor and antibiotics on the menu and see if they sell any shrimp?” he said, exasperated.
Adrian O'Farrill
Michael Stephens, CEO of Bama Seafood Products, a seafood processor and distributor, thinks the federal government could help the industry by creating a grant program for the marketing of U.S. seafood.
“We need to create a brand for us, just like the milk council, the beef council, the cotton council did,” said Stephens, whose company sells both domestic wild-caught shrimp and imported shrimp to wholesale, grocery, and retail clients. “We need to tell the story of the American fisherman.”
SeaD consulting’s testing campaign does give shrimpers like Versaggi some hope. Armed with their findings, he believes consumers are more likely to deliberately ask where the shrimp on their table is coming from, and go the extra step to ensure they’re getting what they paid for. Meanwhile, he’s going to continue to do everything he can to stay in business.
“We’re not going anywhere,” said Versaggi. “We’re going to try to see this through.”
“We’re not curing cancer down here, we’re going fishing,” he added. “And you know, I love it.”
