Fort Lauderdale’s iconic dining spots have a lot to offer, outdoor seating, views of the water, and fresh caught seafood.
Not so fast, says commercial fisheries scientist David Williams.
Williams, the founder of SeaD consulting, has published a report that says nearly 90% of the shrimp sold in Fort Lauderdale restaurants is not caught locally. Two-thirds of those restaurants advertise or imply that their shrimp is wild or locally caught.
“If you're a tourist and you're coming down and you're overlooking a harbor and there's a damn fishing boat right there and you order the peel and eat shrimp, you're sort of gonna get screwed, aren't you?” he said.
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Instead the shrimp is farmed and imported from countries like Ecuador, Indonesia and India. Williams and his team have done similar studies all over the South, but Florida has an especially ignominious reputation.
“I'm not gonna be negative, so I will say Florida are winners when it comes to inauthenticity," said Williams. "They’re number one."
Mislabeling seafood is against the law in Florida — it’s a second-degree misdemeanor that can mean a $500 fine or up to 60 days in jail.
Williams spoke with WLRN about the report's findings in the new report. Here's an excerpt of the interview:
WLRN: Tell me about this report and tell me how you got the shrimp and what you found.
WILLIAMS: We randomly choose restaurants. The way we do this is we go through something like the health department records, and then once we get to around about a hundred restaurants, we numerate the restaurants. We use a random number generator to select the restaurants. The reason we do that is because we're reporting stuff to [the Federal Trade Commission] FTC and other places, and we don't want to be seen to be having any form of bias.
So eventually you end up in Fort Lauderdale and test 44 different restaurants. All of them sell shrimp and some of them are advertising it as locally caught, but what did you find out about where that shrimp is really coming from?
The big picture is pretty simple, and that is basically 90% of the shrimp that you’re sold in Fort Lauderdale is the Litopenaeus vannamei, which is the farm raised white shrimp. And that is a shrimp that doesn't exist in the Gulf. It doesn't exist on the east coast.
So if it is that shrimp, it is definitely not a gulf shrimp. Now we have no problem with people serving [non] Gulf shrimp. But just don't tell people through either direct stipulation or imagery that you're serving Gulf shrimp. 67% marketed the product as local or wild court American shrimp.
There's lots and lots of places around Fort Lauderdale that are overlooking boats and everything looks pretty and it's idyllic. If you're a tourist and you're coming down and you're overlooking a harbor and there's a damn fishing boat right there and you order the peel and eat shrimp, you're sort of gonna get screwed, aren't you?
How out of the ordinary is this in Fort Lauderdale where the inauthenticity rate is so high? I mean, are there other locations either in Florida or along the Gulf that are like this?
Look, I'm not gonna be negative, so I will say Florida are winners when it comes to inauthenticity. Okay. They're number one. St. Petersburg actually beat you all the first time we tested them. I think there it was only two restaurants out of 44 that were serving local shrimp.
Now the inauthenticity rate is high in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. It's not quite as high in Alabama. It's not quite as high in Mississippi. In Texas, it's about the same as the average. And then in Louisiana, because they have regulations and because I think their culture, the authenticity rate is a lot better.
It's not just a Florida problem, it happens in other places, some more than others. The impacts of this imported shrimp, first of all, where does it come from?
The primary producers that supply the United States are Ecuador, Indonesia, and India. Indonesia is famous right now for the radioactive shrimp.
Wait, what is radioactive shrimp?
Its contamination with cesium. There's been a whole bunch of recalls associated with that.
One of the big problems I have with this is, first of all, I grew up in fishing communities. I love the hustle and bustle of the coast. I think that most people, when they come down to the coast, really want to experience the culture.
When you go to Fort Lauderdale, there is no fishing culture there. There is nothing going on. And what's happening is we are losing the heart and the soul of why everybody comes down to the coast.
