Multiple South Louisiana restaurants caught selling imported shrimp as Gulf product, testing shows

(KPLC) – A company that aims to uncover seafood fraud recently tested 24 restaurants from Kotz Springs to Kinder and found half were selling imported shrimp, with only three being truthful about it.

SeaD Consulting sampled restaurants at random along U.S. 190 to determine whether establishments claiming to sell Gulf shrimp were serving the product they advertised.

“If you don’t want to eat the imported shrimp, you should be allowed to make a choice,” Dave Williams, commercial fishery scientist and founder of SeaD Consulting, said. “Some people want to eat farm-raised shrimp; they should be allowed to make a choice.”

The organization takes multiple DNA samples from shrimp species found only in specific locations, replicates the DNA sequence, and checks whether it appears in the shrimp being tested to find a match.

“What we’re doing is we actually test for the farm-raised Pacific white shrimp because they do not exist in the Gulf. If we find that, we know that it is not wild-caught American shrimp,” Williams said.

One restaurant that passed the test was Mo’s Crawfish in Eunice.

“Because we are Louisiana farmers, we know how harmful it can be if we choose to import. Number one, it’s a cheaper product,” Katherine Hundley, owner of Mo’s, said. “We are definitely more about quality than quantity.”

Michael Hundley, co-owner of Mo’s, said the restaurant wants to support Louisiana shrimpers.

“We just want to take care of the Louisiana product,” he said. “We as farmers – we’re rice farmers and crawfish farmers – we know the effect of buying locally, and we want to support the Louisiana shrimpers just like the Louisiana crawfisherman.”

Louisiana law mandates that restaurants disclose if they sell imported shrimp or face a fine.

“If people want to be honest about what they’re serving, don’t put pictures up on the wall or nets, or things like that. Show a picture of a pond in Vietnam,” Williams said.

Louisiana lawmakers are cracking down on the mislabeling of imported shrimp. House Bill 857, authored by Rep. Tim Kerner (R-Lafitte), would require that domestic and imported seaffood which are mixed together cannot be labeled as solely domestic. If labeled incorrectly, the processor or distributor would face penalties.

HB 857 advanced to the Senate following a unanimous vote in the House. At last check, it’s been referred to the Committee on Natural Resources.