Seafood testers find Shreveport restaurants deceiving customers with foreign shrimp

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Undercover seafood testers sampled a selection of restaurants in the Shreveport area this month and detected what they say is the highest shrimp fraud rate they have recorded to date in Louisiana.

SeaD Consulting, a food testing company that has been making headlines for uncovering seafood fraud at restaurants and festivals across the Gulf Coast, announced in a news release Wednesday that a “troubling” 58% of the restaurants sampled were deceptively serving foreign shrimp falsely presented as if it were domestic in violation of state law.

The company’s use of genetic testing found a total of 17 out of 24 restaurants sampled, or 71%, served foreign farm-raised shrimp. Fourteen of those, or 58%, did so deceptively by mislabeling the country of origin or refusing to indicate it on their menus or restaurant signage.

The sampling, taken March 8-10, is so far the highest inauthenticity rate the SeaD has recorded in Louisiana since it first launched its testing efforts last year at the Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum Festival in Morgan City.

The company does not identify the restaurants that aren’t following the state’s labeling law, opting instead to raise awareness of its existence.

SeaD executive Erin Williams said six of the restaurants were “blatantly being deceptive” by explicitly mislabeling their dishes as “Gulf shrimp” rather than just falsely suggesting it.

It is illegal under federal and state law to mislabel imported seafood as local and can result in fines or other penalties. In some instances, seafood fraud offenses at the federal level can yield criminal charges or even prison time, such as in the 2024 convictions of two Mississippi restaurant owners, one of whom was sentenced to eight months in prison.

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Some establishments have found creative ways around the laws by using vague menu descriptions, such as “Local shrimp served when available.”

In an effort to strengthen enforcement, state legislators recently enacted heavier fines for violators and updated Louisiana’s menu labeling statute. Still, a January meeting of the legislature’s Seafood Safety Task Force exposed some loopholes and contradictions in the new law, so it will likely undergo additional changes when lawmakers convene for their 2025 session beginning April 14.

SeaD Consulting launched its testing efforts last year using undercover inspectors to purchase shrimp dishes from vendors and restaurants. The inspectors run the shrimp through a rapid field testing kit that examines seafood tissue genetics in a process similar to the way medical professionals detect viral infections.

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In addition to its latest results out of Shreveport, the company’s testing of sampled eateries found a 30% shrimp fraud rate in Baton Rouge in December 2024, a 13% fraud rate in New Orleans in January, and a 33% fraud rate in Lafayette in February.

SeaD said it has furnished the names of all the restaurants found to be fraudulently serving imported shrimp to the Louisiana Department of Health for review and enforcement. The Health Department could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.

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