Think you love Gulf shrimp? It’s possible you’ve never even tasted it.
Last Labor Day weekend, sample genetic testing at the Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum Festival in Morgan City, Louisiana — where you’d naturally think "Gulf” shrimp was being sold and promoted in a town built on shrimping — revealed that only one of five vendors (Woodreaux's Cajun Cuisine) was actually serving the real deal. Unaware festival goers never thought to question the source as they consumed imported, farm-raised shrimp right next to the Gulf of Mexico.
Shrimp switching is likely happening at your favorite seafood eatery or grocery store, too, despite labeling and signage that may mislead you, just as it did those festival goers.
Decades ago, ordering a restaurant platter or fish-market pound of Gulf shrimp meant a product “fresh off the boat” in ports from Texas to Florida. Still surrounded today by imagery of boats and nets as they enjoy supposedly fresh local fare, consumers are unaware of a “bait-and-switch” tactic utilizing deceptive labeling practices and imagery to charge premium prices for an inferior foreign product, one that now threatens our domestic shrimping industry.
