MOBILE, Ala. (WPMI) — The Annual National Shrimp Festival in Gulf Shores is under fire after a third-party consulting company claims it found several vendors that were selling dishes containing “imported, farm-raised shrimp.”
The National Shrimp Festival is an annual event hosted on the beach in Gulf Shores. It attracts around 300,000 people and serves more than 7,000 pounds of shrimp.
Dave Williams is the founder of SeaD and a commercial fisheries scientist. He says a Mobile County seafood company reached out to him requesting SeaD to test the shrimp served at the festival. He says five samples were randomly collected from vendors at the festival. The samples were sent to Florida State University for testing and validation. Williams says four out of the five samples came back as farm raised shrimp, which he noted is often imported.
“Our test is highly accurate. It can be used in recipes, and it is perfect for identifying situations in restaurants or festivals where people might now be selling products that they imply they are selling,” said Williams.
Only one vendor out of the five, Rouses Supermarkets, was found to be Gulf wild-caught shrimp. Williams says he wants festival attendees to be aware that they should be careful when trusting organizations and groups.
“If you call yourself the National Annual Shrimp Festival, that should mean something to people coming into the festival. “You should basically support the industry that your festival is designed to sell product to the public,” he said.
The National Shrimp Festival addressed the claims in a press release. Festival co-chair Ginny Barnas states the allegations of intentionally tricking attendees are false.
“We have, for years, included in our vendor contracts that only domestic shrimp are to be served at our festival, and this Texas-based company even acknowledges that fact in their release,” said Barnas.
The 51st Annual National Shrimp Festival featured over one hundred vendors with several of them selling food.
“We have had our domestic provision in our vendor contracts for years. There are monetary penalties for violating the contract, and repeat violators can be removed from the festival,” said Barnas.
Williams says they will not release the names of the four vendors whose dishes tested positive for imported, farm raised shrimp because it would not be fair to other vendors.
“If he refuses to release the alleged violators’ names to us, there’s very little we can do to ensure these vendors are penalized or asked not to come back to our festival,” said Ryan Moberly, Communications Director for the Coastal Alabama Business Chamber.
Barnas invited Williams and SeaD to volunteer their service and test the shrimp for the festival next year.
“The best thing to do if I was the festival is, first of all, trust, but verify if they want to get ahead of this situation and do the right thing, they need to put stuff in place so that they do sell gulf products and if they don’t sell it it’s clearly displayed for everybody to see,” said Williams.
