Something’s fishy: Florida State research cracks the case on shrimp swap scandal

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.

Here’s why it matters: The seafood industry is swimming with imported shrimp, often from farms abroad that may use antibiotics and questionable practices banned here in the states. But restaurants aren’t always upfront about what they’re serving (sometimes even they don’t know), leaving diners in the dark about what’s really on their plates. And it takes business away from U.S. shrimpers.

So in 2022, Williams took his concerns to Florida State University assistant professor Prashant Singh, hoping to crack the case of the sneaky shrimp swap.

Singh was intrigued. “There is this saying, ‘don’t look for a great idea. Look for one great problem to solve.’ SeaD Consulting gave me a problem to solve,” Singh said, explaining why the proposal was accepted.

With the help of SeaD Consulting researchers and Florida State University’s Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology graduate students Samuel Kwawukume and Frank Velez, as well as assistant professor for health, nutrition and food science Leqi Cui, Singh took on the challenge.

Singh, a food safety microbiologist who obtained his doctorate in food science from the University of Missouri, has an extensive background in researching dairy, poultry and beef. Researching seafood was a new area of exploration for him.

“One day I suddenly realized I’ve got the ocean,” he jokingly said upon moving to the Sunshine State in 2018, providing him a natural laboratory to expand his research focus.

Here was the challenge

Williams is a commercial fishery scientist and has decades of experience under his belt. After speaking with fishermen working on the Gulf Coast, he realized the shrimp market was in jeopardy.

He identified the dilemma as an “authenticity-in-the-restaurant problem,” when he found the local “shrimp business was unable to support itself” because people were making substitutions by importing to save dollars on food supply.

This ignited a research campaign funded by the nonprofit organization called Southern Shrimp Alliance. The group is made of fishermen, processors and other members of the domestic shrimp industry.

In an interview with the Tallahassee Democrat in FSU’s Sandels Building, Singh, Kwawukume and graduate teaching assistant Nethraja Kandula, demonstrated how their shrimp authenticity test – which has created ripples in the restaurant scene – was conducted.

Tall refrigerators positioned on the side of the laboratory located inside the building on Convocation Way were filled with hundreds of samples. Glass cylinders with colorful chemicals and testing tubes with labels sat on the counters and shelves next to testing devices.

This testing site sparked national conversations about the quality of shrimp falsely marketed to consumers on a day-to-day basis.

Taking a refrigerated bag of deep-fried shrimp pulled from restaurants, they took the crustaceans and peeled the crispy layers exposing the white meat to pick out a piece of flesh. This one piece of tissue, almost as fine as a strand of hair, was all they needed.

“The test is designed to identify a DNA sequence,” he said. “So, we just run the same test using all the samples.” A portable Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machine helps the scientists identify the difference between domestic species of shrimp and imported species of shrimp.

“We take a tiny piece of shrimp tissue with a disposable toothpick, which is used for DNA isolation by boiling the samples in lysis buffer (a solution that helps to open cells and release their contents).” That’s then used to create a reaction and identify the presence of substances in the liquid sample.

After two years of research, the findings were presented at conferences, including a gathering in August 2024 with people who study and monitor the shrimp industry.

Singh informed attendees about the mislabeled shrimp products they were consuming by presenting his research. But after sharing his studies to groups about the fraudulent label, many were shocked, but it didn’t spark a lasting impression that the team was looking for.

“Nobody cared initially,” he admitted after guests failed to follow up on what could be done to address the misrepresentation. SeaD Consulting realized that stating facts just wasn’t enough to provoke change. The only way to create and maintain sustainable conversations was to essentially create “chaos.”

After licensing the FSU instruments for testing, Williams was hired by the Southern Shrimp Alliance to visit restaurants. He was initially visiting seafood festivals in major cities and found that a majority of the shrimp featured was imported, even though it was implied to be locally sourced. That is when he was asked to visit restaurants.

Williams went undercover at restaurants and ordered shrimp dishes to collect samples for rapid testing, taking in a number of factors like décor and menu wording to determine if “deceptive advertising” was at play.

“The implication that the customer perceives is the fact that it is domestic shrimp,” he said referring to how a restaurant’s ambience can create a false sense of authenticity.

After Williams and Singh tested samples from a number of restaurants across the Southeast, they found that in major cities like New Orleans, 21 out of 24 restaurants passed the authenticity test. Tampa failed, with a majority of its restaurants actually offering imported shrimp on their menus, a prime example of the deception Williams mentioned.

These region-based findings were shared with news outlets, notifying consumers across the nation that they may be getting bamboozled.

Restaurants that failed the testing received letters from SeaD Consulting advising them to correct the false advertising, while those confirmed to sell domestic shrimp were named in the articles with praises.

Restaurants that fail to comply with the guidance will have their names reported to news outlets as the consulting organization continues its research to support the sustainability of U.S. shrimpers and hold restauranteurs accountable for consumer transparency.

Legislators in states like Louisiana have already created laws or regulations to correct these behaviors and protect local shrimpers. Florida legislators, who are preparing to start legislative session in March, have not filed any bills to address these concerns, based on a recent review, though Williams has not actively lobbied for them to do so.

Singh believes the practice of offering cheaper substitutes for locally-sourced items doesn’t end with shrimp. He believes that other product like grouper and snapper may be in the same boat, raising more questions about the accuracy of menu labels.

Singh has reached out to other food industries to see how further research can begin.

“I feel happy. It’s like my research paid off,” Singh said. “Reaching out and touching the life of those people. I don’t want anything else but to support the local economy.”

Kyla A Sanford covers dining and entertainment for the Tallahassee Democrat. New restaurant opening up, special deals, or events coming up? Let me know at ksanford@tallahassee.com. You can also email your suggestions for a future TLH Eats restaurant profile.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Bait and switch? FSU study, researcher dives into seafood mislabeling