Saving Seafood

Shrimpers need honesty in their back yard to survive

August 7, 2025 — In a city of beaches and shrimp boats, with pelicans and seagulls peppering the sky, a new investigation by SeaD Consulting has revealed widespread misrepresentation of shrimp sourcing at sampled Corpus Christi restaurants. Genetic testing, conducted with SeaD Consulting’s Rapid ID Genetic Hi-accuracy Test (RIGHTTest™), of shrimp dishes served in 44 Corpus Christi-area restaurants showed that only 19 restaurants were confirmed to be serving genuine wild-caught domestic/Gulf shrimp, while 25 were not serving wild-caught domestic/Gulf shrimp despite menu claims, staff assurances, or marketing.

“With shrimp boats docked alongside coastal restaurants surrounding Corpus Christi, there is no excuse for more than half of sampled restaurants to be duping their diners,” said Erin Williams, Founder and COO of SeaD Consulting. “Consumers should be able to trust that when they order Gulf shrimp, that’s exactly what’s on their plate.”

Restaurants Verified for Serving Gulf Shrimp

The following 19 restaurants were confirmed to be serving authentic Gulf shrimp:

  • U & I Seafood & Steaks – 309 S Water St, Corpus Christi, TX 78401
  • Executive Surf Club – 306 N Chaparral St, Corpus Christi, TX 78401
  • Water Street Oyster Bar – 309 N Water St, Corpus Christi, TX 78401
  • Paradise Key Dockside Bar & Grill – 165 Cove Harbor N, Rockport, TX 78382
  • Los Comales – 431 Hwy 35 S Rockport, TX 78382
  • Pier 77 – 3307 Hwy 35 N Fulton, TX 78358
  • Shrimp-It-Up – 120 S 8th St, Aransas Pass, TX 78336
  • Texas A1 – 14241 Northwest Blvd Ste 105, Corpus Christi, TX 78410
  • Gallery 41 – 100 N Shoreline Blvd, Corpus Christi, TX 78401
  • Black Diamond Oyster Bar – 418 NAS Dr, Corpus Christi, TX 78418
  • Snoopy’s Pier & Restaurant – 13313 S Padre Island Dr, Corpus Christi, TX 78418
  • Doc’s Seafood & Steaks – 13309 S Padre Island Dr, Corpus Christi, TX 78418
  • Angry Marlin – 15605 S Padre Island Dr, Corpus Christi, TX 78418
  • Trout Street Bar + Grill – 104 W Cotter Ave, Port Aransas, TX 78373
  • Old Fulton Seafood Café & Steakhouse – 2828 Hwy 35 N, Rockport, TX 78382
  • Charlotte Plummer’s Seafare Restaurant – 202 N Fulton Beach Rd, Rockport, TX 78382
  • Mickey’s Bar & Grill – 430 Ransom Rd, Aransas Pass, TX 78336
  • Catfish Charlie’s – 5830 McArdle Rd #12, Corpus Christi, TX 78412
  • Saltwater Grill – 2401 Cimarron Blvd, Corpus Christi, TX 78414

Misrepresentation Findings

Of the 25 restaurants not serving Gulf shrimp:

  • 21 explicitly described their shrimp as local or domestic either verbally or on the menu.
  • 4 implied Gulf or wild-caught sourcing through branding or menu descriptions.

SeaD Consulting’s testing revealed blatant examples of explicit inauthenticity, where menus and staff descriptions confidently claimed Gulf shrimp that turned out to be imported or farm-raised shrimp.

Shrimp boat owner in Palacios, Texas and Southern Shrimp Alliance Board Member Ken Garcia said, “We don’t want these restaurants to stop saying they are selling Gulf shrimp, we want them to actually start serving it.”

Impact and Next Steps

Imported shrimp—often produced under unregulated environmental and labor conditions—undercuts the local shrimp industry, erodes consumer trust, and misleads customers who pay premium prices expecting fresh, local seafood.

In May 2025, Texas passed legislation requiring all food service suppliers, wholesalers, distributors, and wholesale distributors selling shrimp in Texas to include a label to the restaurant with “clear and conspicuous notice stating whether the shrimp is imported.” Further, the law prohibits restaurants from labeling or representing imported shrimp as “Texas shrimp,” “Gulf shrimp,” “American shrimp,” or “Domestic shrimp.” However, consumers must still ask about the country of origin of the shrimp if it is not indicated as local wild-caught. If there is any violation of these requirements, the legislation authorizes the Texas Health Department, a public health district, a county, or a municipality to impose an administrative penalty. The law takes effect on September 1, 2025.

Follow-up genetic testing is also planned to track progress and encourage honesty in seafood sourcing.

About the Southern Shrimp Alliance

The Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA) represents shrimp fishermen, processors, and businesses in the eight warmwater shrimp-producing states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. SSA funds multi-state investigations into seafood mislabeling to protect the domestic shrimp industry and consumers.

About SeaD Consulting

SeaD Consulting collaborates with seafood producers, researchers, governments, and environmental advocates to promote sustainability and truth in seafood sourcing. SeaD holds the patent for the RIGHTTest™ (Rapid ID Genetic High-Accuracy Test) and leads landmark studies across the Gulf and beyond.

For more on the investigation, photos, B-roll, SME interviews, and access to the full report, visit Media Kit or contact Glenda Beasley at 512.750.5199.

Disclaimer: SeaD’s testing and reporting is intended to be used as an investigatory tool to assist the restaurant industry’s fight against seafood mislabeling and is not intended for use in any legal proceedings, nor may SeaD’s data, testing, or reporting be used in any legal proceeding without the express written authorization of SeaD.

 

LOUISIANA: Seafood testers find Shreveport restaurants deceiving customers with foreign shrimp

March 27, 2025 — 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 that 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.

Local seafood was once easy to find in Louisiana, but an influx of cheap foreign catch, particularly shrimp and crawfish, has flooded the market over the past two decades.

Williams said she believes there is less public awareness in the Shreveport area of the foreign seafood problem and the plight of the coastal communities that depend on commercial fishermen.

Read the full article at the Louisiana Illuminator