May 27, 2021 — Fresh and local are huge selling points for seafood, but when you buy fish or shellfish from local grocery stores and markets, are you getting what you’re paying for?
“People want Carolina shrimp. It’s that simple,” said Doug Cross, co-owner of Pamlico Packing, which gets locally caught seafood to North Carolina plates.
“Our shrimp, most of them, are caught in a more brackish environment in the Pamlico Sound, which is one of the best places in the world to grow a shrimp,” Cross said.
But Cross’ competition is not just coming from other coastal fishermen. With demand for fresh and local, many sellers are cutting corners by getting their seafood from other countries. And in some cases, high-demand fish is being mislabeled.
In the past two years, two North Carolina-based crab meat companies admitted in federal court they were labeling crab as a U.S. product when a lot of the meat was foreign.