It seems that restaurants in the Monroe and Ruston areas need a little work in telling diners about the source of their shrimp.
SeaD Consulting went to 24 restaurants, and Founder David Williams said of the ones that served imported shrimp, none of them complied with the state’s new seafood labeling laws.
“At the very minimum, you should have a sign saying, ‘We may or may not serve imported shrimp. Please ask your server.’ And there was no actual signage like that in any of the restaurants we went to,” Williams said.
From Sept. 11-14, SeaD Consulting conducted testing using its RIGHTTest™ genetic technology on shrimp dishes from those 24 restaurants.
While the testing found that 11 of those dishes served authentic domestic wild-caught shrimp, it found that 13 of them contained imported, farm-raised shrimp.
SeaD Consulting says of those 13:
- Seven menus explicitly said “Gulf” or domestic shrimp were being served
- Five had staff explicitly assure customers that the dish used Gulf or domestic shrimp
- One admitted to serving imported shrimp but had no signage complying with Louisiana’s labeling laws
- None had required signage indicating imported product
Williams says especially with the increase in radioactive material being found in imported shrimp, that’s a huge issue.
“If you go into a restaurant and you’ll be, ‘Hey, I don’t want to eat imported shrimp,’ and they say that they’re serving you Gulf shrimp and they’re still serving you imported shrimp, then that is a really big issue to me,” Williams said.
Williams says the fact that many restaurants in Monroe, Ruston – and Shreveport, as previously tested – serve imported shrimp is par for the course, based on his company’s findings.
“As you go north, the further away from the coast you get, the authenticity rate tends to drop down significantly,” Williams noted.
By contrast, the authenticity rate along the I-10 corridor tends to be very high, with the New Orleans area being the highest.
Note: An earlier version of this story erroneously stated that all 24 restaurants served imported shrimp. We regret the error.
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