Tag Archives: SeaD CEO David Williams
Something’s fishy: Florida State research cracks the case on shrimp swap scandal
Florida State University assistant professor Prashant Singh
When it comes to seafood, people want the real deal – not some fishy bait-and-switch. But in the billion-dollar shrimp industry, it turns out diners might not be getting what they paid for: Eateries offering imported shrimp disguised as locally caught delicacies. David Williams, founder of Houston-based food safety tech company SeaD Consulting, has spent years diving into the murky waters of seafood sourcing. His team’s research kept surfacing the same troubling question: Do consumers really know where their shrimp come from? “Why would you want to be lied to?” Williams said. After all, no one orders a plate of shrimp expecting a side of deception. Photos, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 11:39
Seafood-testing campaign ahead of Super Bowl raises awareness of foreign shrimp
A new round of genetic seafood testing conducted for a state advisory panel detected foreign shrimp that was falsely presented as domestic in a small percentage of the restaurants sampled in New Orleans, despite a new state law that forbids the practice. SeaD Consulting, a Houston, Texas, company, made headlines last year when it detected mostly foreign shrimp served at the Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival in Morgan City. It announced Monday that it tested seafood at 24 randomly selected restaurants ahead of Super Bowl LIX and found three had served foreign, farm-raised shrimp while billing their catch as local. “Customers deserve to know exactly what they’re eating, and our shrimping communities must be able to trust that restaurants using local shrimp imagery and language are genuinely selling that product,” Louisiana Shrimp Task Force member Andrew Blanchard said in a statement. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 10:42
Baton Rouge restaurants found serving mislabeled imported shrimp — and charging more
Following a pattern of mislabeling seafood, new genetic testing found that nearly a third of randomly selected Baton Rouge restaurants were advertising imported shrimp as Gulf of Mexico catch. For years, shrimpers and advocates have been raising alarm over cheap imports straining the declining industry. Around 90 percent of shrimp sold in the United States is farm-raised and imported, according to the Louisiana Shrimp Association. SeaD Consulting, a company that has been using rapid genetic testing across the region, sampled menu items from 24 restaurants around Baton Rouge and found that seven were promoting imported shrimp as local. “This genetic testing is a good sign to back up what we’ve been saying all this time,” Acy Cooper, the president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, said. “They’re selling this stuff off the backs of Louisiana fishermen.” more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 06:44
Shrimp sham: Investigation finds over 80% of “Gulf shrimp” sold on Mississippi Coast is imported
After Mississippi Gulf Coast staple restaurant Mary Mahoney’s Old French House came under fire for fraudulent branding of seafood, a new third-party investigation has found that mislabeling imported seafood is more rule than the exception for the region’s celebrated food scene. SeaD Consulting, a firm that specializes in genetic testing to monitor mislabeling and substitution fraud in the seafood industry, conducted a comprehensive investigation into the potential misrepresentation of shrimp served across coastal Mississippi. “Consumers come to the coast expecting the finest, freshest Gulf seafood, but what they’re being served often falls far short of that,” COO of SeaD Consulting Erin Williams said in a press release. “This isn’t just about mislabeling; it’s about eroding consumer trust, undercutting local business, and threatening the livelihood of hardworking Gulf shrimpers.” more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 10:56The Truth Behind the Menu: Study finds widespread mislabeled shrimp in Coast restaurants
Docked shrimp boats, and empty factories. It’s a sight many in the shrimp industry are dealing with because of the imports flooding the market. “It’s really hard to stay in business, and to stay afloat,” says Ocean Springs Seafood Market Inc. Vice President Bethany Fayard. And it doesn’t help that restaurants are still advertising imported shrimp as domestic. “It’s a dying industry. We have let imports basically hurt the fisherman in Mississippi,” says State Representative Brent Anderson. A seafood consulting group known as SeaD was asked by an unnamed organization to look into this issue. The results were not entirely shocking to Fayard and Anderson, who both push for stricter labeling laws in the state. “In Biloxi, we have a situation which we weren’t coming in to test for, but we discovered quite rapidly, and that is the mislabeling of the Royal Red Shrimp,” says SeaD CEO David Williams. Video, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 08:52
