GULF SHORES, Ala. (WKRG) — Shrimp, Shrimp, and more shrimp. “This is the cream of the crop when you get a wild-caught shrimp,” said Avery Bates with the Organized Seafood Association of Alabama.
The quality of shrimp has always been a point of pride for the National Shrimp Festival, until last year.
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“Last year, there was a vendor agreement that only domestic wild-caught was to be sold at the festival,” said Erin Williams with SeaD Consulting, who secretly DNA tested samples. “We found in our testing that wasn’t the case.”
Results from four of the five samples tested last year came back as imported shrimp.
This year, SeaD was invited back to test all the shrimp being sold at the festival, “As a way to celebrate the original intent of the festival, which was to celebrate our local seafood community,” said Chandra Wright, who has been designated to inspect the shrimp.
SeaD Consulting uses a rapid DNA test that gets results in hours rather than weeks…