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PORTSIDE CULTURE

SHRIMP MISLABELING IS RAMPANT IN GULF STATE RESTAURANTS. SHRIMPERS
AND CONSUMERS ARE PAYING THE PRICE.  
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Rebecca McCray
March 7, 2025
Ambrook.com
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_ Wild shrimp is advertised on menus, but what is served is often the
farm-raised, imported kind that makes up more than 90 percent of the
shrimp consumed in the U.S. _

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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 Coast, 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.

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.

“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.

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.”

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