Imagine sitting down for a meal at a restaurant with a view of the ocean. You are on vacation, and the restaurant’s décor includes fishnets, pictures of boats and taxidermied exemplars of the local catch. You order a plate of shrimp, reasonably expecting it to have come from nearby waters.
Way too often it comes from thousands of miles away, Dave Williams told a small crowd at the Louisiana Shrimp Festival on a summer-hot day in New Orleans last fall. “And that’s despicable,” he said.
Mr. Williams is a commercial fisheries scientist who was in New Orleans to shed light on what he considers an epidemic problem: restaurants and festivals misrepresenting imported shrimp as locally caught. In many cases, diners are paying for what they think is more expensive, high-quality wild Gulf shrimp, but is actually an inferior product produced by an aquaculture industry that has a history of labor abuse. A 2020 study by Louisiana State University found two thirds of imported shrimp samples purchased in Baton Rouge contained banned veterinary drugs.
These farm-raised imports from Asia and South America have flooded the U.S. market, depressing prices. Fishing communities along the Gulf Coast have been decimated and livelihoods destroyed in part because the domestic shrimp industry is being pushed to the edge of extinction.
Mr. Williams founded a company, SEAD Consulting, that developed a genetic test to rapidly identify seafood species. He is using the technology to expose restaurants and festivals misrepresenting their seafood offerings, especially shrimp.
He finds the practice particularly offensive in the Gulf South, the center of a domestic shrimp industry that, as recently as the 1980s, provided 50 percent of the seafood consumed in the United States.
But according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States imported more than 90 percent of its shrimp last year, some 1.6 billion pounds. Domestic shrimpers are embracing a recent slate of tariffs enacted by President Trump as a last-ditch chance to reverse the imbalance.
“Restaurants are making additional margin because they’re pretending to sell the Gulf product,” Mr. Williams said. “Shrimpers are not getting their fair share, and customers are not getting what they paid for.”
SEAD developed its peer-reviewed test in collaboration with Prashant Singh, a food safety microbiologist at Florida State University. Dr. Singh said the process was designed to be simple, effective, portable and affordable; the equipment includes a centrifuge and heating device, each roughly the size of a toaster. Mr. Williams described it “as a very sophisticated version of a pregnancy test.”
SEAD’s mission began in earnest when Mr. Williams and his colleagues tested the shrimp served at two Gulf Coast festivals last September and October. Four out of the five vendors tested at the Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, held in Morgan City over Labor Day weekend, were serving imported shrimp.
Weeks later, four out of five of the vendors tested at the National Shrimp Festival, in Gulf Shores, Ala., were also found to be serving farm-raised, imported shrimp, despite the festival’s claim to showcase “fresh seafood from the Gulf of Mexico.”
“They’re just truly horrible,” Mr. Williams said during his talk in New Orleans. “But the real problem is restaurants.”
Dana Honn, a New Orleans restaurateur, conceived of last year’s inaugural Louisiana Shrimp Festival to draw attention and aid to the industry after hearing alarming stories about desperate local shrimpers losing their houses and boats. (Vendors at his festival passed SEAD’s authenticity tests “with flying colors,” according to a company release.)
“The industry really needs someone like Dave to stand up for them,” Mr. Honn said. “Even a change of five or 10 percent in the market can make a huge difference.”
In September, the Federal Trade Commission published guidance aimed at restaurants that bend “the rules by using pictures, symbols, or other things to make people believe something about what they are selling without actually saying the words. That’s an implied claim. If it’s not true, it’s just as illegal as an outright lie.”
Alvaro M. Bedoya, who stepped down as F.T.C. commissioner last month, cited that guidance in an October letter sent to the country’s 10 top-grossing seafood restaurants, including Red Lobster, Long John Silver’s and Legal Sea Foods. “I will not hesitate to request a law enforcement investigation if I am presented with credible evidence of a law violation,” Mr. Bedoya wrote.
Mr. Williams, a tough-talking Briton who lives in Houston, conveys a visceral connection to the victims of seafood fraud. He choked up twice recounting the withering away of rural fishing communities, including in his native Devon, England, during his New Orleans talk.
He also stands to gain if government agencies and domestic seafood interests adopt SEAD’s genetic testing system to put teeth into the laws. “I can say, ‘If you go over 60 miles per hour, I’m going to fine you $500. If you don’t have a speed gun or a radar,” he said, “there is no enforcement.”
SEAD started testing shrimp in randomly selected restaurants across the South late last year, with funding from the Southern Shrimp Alliance, which represents the shrimping industry across eight states.
Only eight of the 44 restaurants tested on the Mississippi Gulf Coast were found to be serving local shrimp. This reporter visited five of the restaurants SEAD’s team tested, just before the results were released in early December. All of the restaurants contained decorations that implied local seafood was being served. None of their menus were in full compliance with the F.T.C.’s standards.
Menus at three of the restaurants identified dishes containing Royal Red shrimp, a species found in deep water that generally commands a higher price because of its superior quality. “They’re sweeter, a little like lobster,” said the server at one of the restaurants, in Gulfport.
The staff at that restaurant and the other two conceded that the “Royal Reds” on their menus were actually a different species from Argentina. The Argentine shrimp are much cheaper, said Jeremy Zirlott, a fifth-generation shrimper based in Bayou Le Batre, Ala., who has been fishing Royal Reds for 20 years.
“Restaurants are paying less for a product but still charging a premium,” said Mr. Zirlott, who said he hasn’t made a profit on his three fishing boats in three years.
The menus at two of the Mississippi restaurants visited in December had been changed to indicate they were serving Argentine shrimp on return visits in April.
Two staff members at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. in Biloxi said on an April visit that the restaurant doesn’t serve any domestic seafood beyond a daily crawfish special. The restaurant, which is on the water, based on the movie “Forrest Gump” featuring a Gulf Coast shrimper and decorated with fishing paraphernalia, appeared to violate the standard set by the F.T.C.
In a statement, the company said: “Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. is themed after an iconic movie, and our décor and menus are designed to reflect such. We do not falsely promote the origin of our seafood and operate within FTC regulations.”
SEAD followed its Mississippi tests with similar ones across the Southeast, including in Galveston and Kemah, Texas (59 percent fraud rate, according to a company release), Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg, Fla. (96 percent), and Savannah, Ga. (77 percent).
SEAD has focused much of its attention on Louisiana, the country’s largest shrimp producer and a state where misleading seafood labeling has historically been an open secret. Its tests there have been funded largely by the Louisiana Shrimp Task Force, which advises state agencies on behalf of diners and the shrimp industry.
A state law passed in 2019 required restaurants to disclose on their menus if they were serving imported shrimp or crawfish. The Louisiana Department of Health recorded 4,461 violations of the law through 2024. But the agency, which is responsible for the law’s enforcement, issued no fines. The law didn’t include provisions for penalties.
Louisiana’s lawmakers passed a law with tougher enforcement measures that went into effect on January 1. The health department has since recorded 415 violations, and issued 136 $500 fines through April 11.
The Louisiana Restaurant Association instructs restaurants serving imported crawfish or shrimp to inform customers, on its menu or on signs, “Some items served at this establishment may contain imported crawfish or shrimp. Ask for more information.” The association does not mention other provisions of the law that require more specific language, including the origin of the crawfish or shrimp.
Mr. Williams accused the restaurant association of attempting to “dilute the power of the law.”
“The guidance we provide to our members was issued by the Louisiana Department of Health and remains consistent,” a spokeswoman for the L.R.A. wrote in an email. The health department did not respond to The Times’s questions about how its inspectors interpreted the labeling law.
Mr. Williams said the comparatively low fraud rates in Baton Rouge (30 percent), New Orleans (13 percent) and Lafayette (33 percent) is evidence that Louisiana’s laws, flawed as they’ve been, are having an effect.
Paige Morrison, director of the U.S. Shrimpers Coalition, said imported shrimp has so affected prices that her husband, Stevie, had to take a job as a pipe fitter after decades as a commercial shrimper in Georgia. She argued that the savings are not being passed onto diners at restaurants, which are charging historically high prices for shrimp cocktails, for instance.
“We don’t get any of that money,” she said.
Data supplied by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries illustrates the punishing economics. In 2013, 57 million pounds of white shrimp were harvested in Louisiana, valued at more than $128 million. A comparable amount of white shrimp harvested last year — 52 million pounds — was valued at just $54 million.
Kindra Arnesen, a Louisiana shrimper, said her family’s boats have been docked since taking in just $7,000 last year. That’s compared with the $350,000 to $400,000 she said they’d bring in annually 20 years ago.
But she did attribute a recent uptick in prices at the docks, as well as stricter enforcement at Louisiana seafood festivals, in part because of the news stories generated by SEAD’s testing.
“We are definitely seeing some impacts,” said Ms. Arnesen, who hired a captain to take out one of her family’s dormant boats, hoping to take advantage of rising prices.
In Texas and Georgia, lawmakers are working to pass seafood labeling laws similar to Louisiana’s.
Mr. Williams was in New Orleans again last week. He and three other SEAD colleagues, including Dr. Singh, were testing samples of 19 shrimp dishes served at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in a hotel conference room.
With their most recent restaurant tests, in Wilmington, N.C., producing what has become a predictably discouraging outcome (77 percent fraud rate), the team appeared taken aback by the results.
“Only one dish at Jazz Fest that was inauthentic,” Mr. Williams announced. “That’s a good result. It’s why we do the tests.”
Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.
