Saving Seafood

US senator moves to raise tariffs on Ecuadorian shrimp

October 5, 2026 — U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Mississippi) has introduced a bill to raise tariffs on shrimp from Ecuador in a bid to discourage imports and support the domestic shrimp sector.

“Not much has changed since the federal government found that subsidized Ecuadorian shrimp contributed to material injury to the U.S. shrimp industry, except that Ecuador has only increased its shipments into the American market. As a result, Mississippi shrimpers and their counterparts across the Gulf face greater downward pressure on the prices they can get for their products,” Hyde-Smith said in a release. “The Ecuador Shrimp Tariff Act would work to level the playing field so that American shrimpers and processors can continue to compete and grow.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

The Shrimp on Your Table Has a Dark History

April 17, 2024 –A few months ago, along the coast of Andhra Pradesh in eastern India, Josh Farinella drove 40 minutes out of his way to visit workers who peel shrimp for Choice Canning, where he worked as a shrimp factory manager. He didn’t travel to the rural area for any of his job responsibilities; he was there to document injustice. He observed a crew of local women quickly peeling shrimp along rusty tables in 90-degree heat, wearing street clothes and flip-flops. They worked for long hours in a shed in a dirt field, far from the main work site, easily escaping the notice of auditors.

“These peeling sheds aren’t supposed to be there. They’re not supposed to be used by anybody,” Farinella told Civil Eats. “There are 20,000 pounds of shrimp per day going through these peeling sheds that are landing on U.S. grocery store shelves.” The high temperatures in the shed could easily lead to pathogen growth, he warned.

Farinella started his work for Choice Canning in 2015 at a production facility in his hometown of Pittston, Pennsylvania. In 2023, when the company offered him a high-paying managerial position at a new facility in Andhra Pradesh, he accepted. But four months into the job, he decided to come forward as a whistleblower, exposing what he says are the deplorable and unsanitary conditions in one of India’s largest shrimp manufacturers.

According to the company’s website, Choice Canning sells shrimp in more than 48,000 retail and food-service locations in the U.S. This includes major retailers like Walmart, Aldi, ShopRite, Hannaford, and HelloFresh, which advertise to consumers their commitments to sustainable seafood sourcing on their websites.

As Farinella was driving back to the town of Amalapuram, he recalled receiving a text from his wife with a photo of officers with machine guns outside their apartment. It was unusual timing. “It was one of those heart-beating-out-of-your-chest moments, like, does somebody know?” he said, worried that the company had caught on to his gathering dirt on its bad practices.

Soon after, Farinella quit his job, filed a complaint with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and flew back to the U.S. He took with him thousands of pages of documents, photographs, and videos, which have since been published by The Ocean Outlaw Project, alongside a vivid, reported account of his experiences at Choice Canning over the course of a few months of employment. According to the Project, this includes text messages that reveal that when Farinella informed the company’s vice president that shrimp had tested positive for antibiotics, which are banned in shrimp by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, he was told to “ship it” to the U.S. anyway.

Read the full article at Civil Eats