Shrimp is a way of life in South Louisiana. Generations of white-booted shrimpers trawl for the popular crustacean year-round, and diners expect to find it in various forms on nearly every regional menu they meet.
But is the shrimp you’re eating actually from the Gulf of Mexico?
As Business Report details in a feature from the current issue, even here in Baton Rouge, there’s a good chance that what you’re consuming isn’t always from domestic waters. In fact, fishing industry experts say the majority of seafood consumed in the United States—about 90%—is imported. It’s even higher for shrimp, a food rife with political and social baggage, from the pervasive slave labor practices recently revealed in southeast Asia to diminished prices in the U.S. caused by years of cheap imports.
“We are a seafood debtor nation,” says Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board Executive Director Karen Profita.
The local foods movement has prompted more consumers to inquire about the provenance of what is on their plates, but even against this favorable backdrop, local shrimpers struggle to compete with a steady influx of less expensive imported shrimp that don’t have to meet the same regulatory standards that domestic products do. To combat this, the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board launched its new “Know Better To Eat Better” campaign in April to educate consumers about the high quality and safe shrimp caught and produced in domestic waters.
The campaign, says Profita, invites consumers to become part of the “American Seafood Coast Guard” and support local producers by buying local and pointedly pressing restaurants, seafood markets and grocery stores to cough up their seafood’s country of origin. The organization is also pushing Louisiana shrimp as a high quality item to nationwide supermarket chains, says Profita.
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