May 12, 2024 — Restaurants and grocery stores will have to label their seafood as imported or domestic, after Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill requiring it into law Friday.
“This is as bad as it’s ever been. We need help,” Kerry Mitchell, secretary of the Alabama Commercial Fishermen Association, a newly formed nonprofit advocating for fishermen in the area. “I’m happy that the government is talking about it…legislators are finally helping us.”
HB66, sponsored by State Rep. Chip Brown (R-Hollinger’s Island), requires food service establishments, like restaurants, grocery stores and delis, to label seafood as “imported,” or note the product’s country of origin. Domestic seafood can be labeled with the state of origin, U.S.A. or United States of America.
In addition, the law requires food service establishments to distinguish between “wild fish” and “farm-raised fish,” but only for fish and shrimp. These labels must be displayed conspicuously, for example on the product itself, attached to a menu or displayed on a sign. Establishments that violate these rules will be fined after the first offense.
The goal of the bill is to bring awareness to consumers about the origin of their seafood and provide relief to Alabama’s fisherman, who have been struggling with low dock prices of shrimp due to the influx of imports. Currently, foreign shrimp accounts for 94% of the U.S. market, Caine O’Rear, communications director for Mobile Baykeeper, said.
Last year, the Bayou La Batre City Council—the epicenter of Alabama’s seafood industry—declared a disaster, requesting help from Ivey for the seafood industry. “Shrimp dumping,” where foreign, typically farm-raised shrimp floods the market, causing dock prices to drop had driven the industry to the point of near-collapse.
“I’ve never seen shrimp prices this low, ever,” Amanda Schjott, a resident of the area whose husband has worked in shrimping since he was a teenager, told the Mobile Press-Register in August. “It’s a dying industry, and they’re killing it even faster.”
Brown says that the hope is that demand for domestic seafood, and particularly Alabama seafood, will increase as a result. Consumers will be more aware of the kind of seafood they’re getting, he says, and in turn, they’ll ask for the local kind.