Louisiana catches about 70 million tons of shrimp, but it's not enough to meet America's surging demand. Cheap imports make up 90% of what the US consumes, and most of it is farmed in countries like India using controversial tactics. Dock prices in Louisiana have fallen to compete. It's left US shrimpers with a perfect storm of rock-bottom prices and sky-high fuel. Up and down the supply chain, companies worry this may be the last generation of Louisiana shrimpers.
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00:00Shrimp is the most consumed seafood in the United States.
00:05And in Louisiana, it's big business.
00:09The wild-caught crustaceans bring in about $1.3 billion for the state every year.
00:14But for the last few years, shrimpers have been hit with the perfect storm
00:18of rising fuel costs and rock-bottom prices.
00:21That's one of the toughest jobs you could ever do.
00:24And if you're not getting your dues for it, why do it?
00:28Producers say a flood of cheaper imported shrimp from India and Ecuador
00:33is sinking Louisiana's industry.
00:35But there's no way to feed America's skyrocketing demand without imports,
00:39which make up 90% of the shrimp the U.S. consumes.
00:43Up against these headwinds, companies up and down Louisiana's supply chain
00:47are closing up shop.
00:49If you worked hard and you did the right thing,
00:51you could become a millionaire in the 80s and the 90s.
00:54Now you could barely make a living.
00:56So how did the industry get this bad?
00:58And is it too late to save it?
01:07New Orleans chef Justin Kennedy insists on buying only wild shrimp
01:11caught by fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico.
01:14We have never fried a foreign shrimp and ever served it to our customer.
01:17I'll never even look at it as an option.
01:19He runs Parkway Bakery and Tavern, a New Orleans fixture since 1911,
01:24famous for these massive po'boys.
01:27It's just one of those perfect little things
01:30that bring all walks of life together.
01:33And damn, if it's a sandwich, you know?
01:36He can go through 3,000 pounds of shrimp a week.
01:39So what this is is a sink that we just had chilled water piped to.
01:44And it's just a quick thaw, thawing out our seafood.
01:49And if you look at them, they're peeled.
01:51We take that vein out because it's a cleaner shrimp.
01:55It butterflies it a little bit more to kind of hold the batter
01:58and just make it a better bite.
02:00I'm going to scoop a heaping pile of it up.
02:03So we're going to dust this up.
02:06He coats them in only corn flour.
02:09We just use the natural juices and moisture from the shrimp to pick up that flour.
02:14You lightly, lightly shake that off.
02:18350 degrees. That's pure vegetable oil.
02:22This one right here is getting that golden brown color, right?
02:26Looking like a little baby fried chicken.
02:29Watch this. You break that open.
02:31Look at that. Look at that little coating.
02:34Look at that Louisiana white meat in there.
02:37You know, you can't get no better than that.
02:39That shrimp will eventually meet one of these giant loaves.
02:43I think I'm almost two breads tall. Let's see.
02:46The French people kind of laugh at it because we call it French bread,
02:50but it's New Orleans French bread.
02:52This ain't French bread.
02:54Justin hits the bread with some mayo, lettuce, and tomato.
02:58And then we start dealing this shrimp.
03:00Two handfuls?
03:02Oh no, we put more than that, yeah.
03:04Four handfuls?
03:06It's a big sandwich, but you'll notice
03:09when you see this thing laid out in front of you,
03:11you'll be like, how am I going to eat all that?
03:13And then all of a sudden, it's gone.
03:16So we do one fold.
03:18Tuck these in.
03:23Wrap it, and we're going to put one more on there.
03:29There you go.
03:32Parkway bakery shrimp po' boy.
03:36Where's that going out?
03:38In my belly, baby.
03:41About 1,000 people line up every day for these sandwiches,
03:45and Justin credits local shrimp for his award-winning recipe.
03:49You know, I've had people try to sample me foreign.
03:52The batter won't stick on it.
03:54It's translucent when you cook it.
03:56You never see this pretty white meat.
03:58It still looks clear.
04:00It still looks like this when you cook it.
04:02But this Louisiana shrimp's true and true every time.
04:07Can't beat it.
04:11Justin gets most of his shrimp from this factory,
04:13right up the road.
04:16Kristen Bommer is one of the few processors left in the area
04:19who only works with Gulf shrimp,
04:22just like his family has for over 130 years.
04:25We've definitely seen a lot of processors go out of business.
04:29It's become more of a volume game because the margins are so tight.
04:33His company processes 30 million pounds of shrimp annually.
04:37So what we're doing is easy peeling shrimp.
04:39We're hand-feeding it into a machine that splits the back of the shell,
04:44cuts the shell open, and then it allows, when you cook it,
04:47more flavor to get into the shrimp as well as making it easier to peel.
04:51Kristen's team flash freezes all the crustaceans in this room.
04:55That's how they're able to transport the shrimp all over the country.
04:58So they're picking shrimp for the second time
05:01to make sure they get all the defects out of it before it goes up.
05:06This shaker separates the pieces so they won't stick together when they're frozen.
05:11Then they take a trip down this tunnel at minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
05:16And after the shrimp hits the liquid nitrogen, it forms a crust on the shrimp,
05:20and then it moves slowly through the belt to freeze from the outside in.
05:25Don't stick your finger in unless you have a warrant that you want to burn up.
05:30This machine portions the seafood into five-pound bags of about 15 pieces.
05:35Each bag gets a traceability barcode.
05:42This processed product comes out to anywhere from $7 to $10 a pound,
05:46depending on the season.
05:48With inflation, everything is getting more and more expensive,
05:51and running these processing plants and all this moving equipment
05:54and avoiding breakdowns takes a lot of capital.
06:00People have been fishing and processing this shrimp in Louisiana for centuries,
06:04from Cajun fishermen to the indigenous people of the United Houma Nation.
06:08In the 1800s, shrimp was a staple food of the poor,
06:11and sellers couldn't transport it far because shrimp spoiled so easily in the Louisiana heat.
06:17That was until the mid-1800s,
06:19when several advancements brought shrimp beyond the local scene.
06:23Chinese immigrants introduced traditional drying techniques that could preserve the shrimp,
06:27and the first canning factory in New Orleans opened up in 1875.
06:32But fresh shrimp transported on ice was expensive,
06:35so it took on a reputation as a luxury item,
06:38tossed into shrimp salads and perched in cocktails.
06:42By the 1950s, techniques to freeze shrimp and new refrigerated trucks sealed the deal.
06:47They allowed for seafood delivery as far away as the East Coast and Chicago.
06:52This was about the time that the shrimp imports into the U.S. from Mexico
06:56and then India began to take off.
06:59By 1970, demand across the U.S. had nearly tripled,
07:02and domestic shrimpers caught more to keep up,
07:05with Louisiana leading the pack.
07:07By the 90s, the state's shrimp and shellfish generated nearly $2 billion
07:12and supported 22,000 jobs.
07:15And come the turn of the century, shrimp became the most consumed seafood in America.
07:21At the same time, new tech helped farms in Asia and South America raise a lot more shrimp.
07:27In less than a decade, farming production skyrocketed nearly 200 percent,
07:32overtaking global catches of wild shrimp.
07:35In 2023, the U.S. imported 1.7 billion pounds,
07:39nearly as much as its population consumes.
07:42And these imports are often cheaper than wild-caught U.S. shrimp.
07:47That's because labor costs are lower in big shrimp-farming countries like India and Ecuador,
07:52and their governments have subsidized these operations.
07:55In the U.S., domestic shrimp prices have dropped to compete with the low import prices.
08:03Meanwhile, shrimpers like Captain Lonnie Mayhew Jr.
08:06are facing skyrocketing costs of operating a boat.
08:09You're wasting fuel and ice if you don't catch anything.
08:12Since the 1980s, he says a block of ice has gone from $14 to $26 today.
08:18A set of new nets more than doubled, and a gallon of gas more than tripled in price.
08:23At 82 years old, Lonnie, who goes by Knuckles,
08:26hasn't given up trawling these waters, even after six decades.
08:31Starting in May, he heads out to catch brown shrimp, usually around sunset.
08:36You have to go do your homework and know where they're going to be at.
08:42He works independently, like most of the shrimpers here.
08:46Right about there.
08:49A little too far.
08:51During the day, brown shrimp may bury themselves in the sediment to hide from predators.
08:56But after dark, they often come out and roam in shallow water.
09:01Knuckles and his duckhand Steve drop these nets that skim the top of the water.
09:05We're not dragging anything on the bottom.
09:08He positions himself against the current, so the shrimp flow right into his nets.
09:12The shrimp are not like fish.
09:16They can't really swim that great.
09:19They take a ride on the current.
09:23Knuckles and Steve will pick out and keep just the shrimp.
09:27Sea turtles have an escape hatch in the net, and other animals get thrown back into the sea.
09:32Whereas some dolphins are waiting to chow down on them.
09:35If we don't pick up in their favor often enough, they'll take and bite it out of the net.
09:42They can literally rip a four-foot hole in it, which is going to take a lot of time to fix.
09:48Like this one.
09:50Knuckles pulls up the net so he can sew it closed.
09:54You know, you're going to be working for literally nothing.
10:00This work can be grueling.
10:02Some shrimpers have big enough vessels they can stay out for weeks at a time.
10:07Knuckles has a smaller boat, so he fishes just until morning.
10:13But even after all this work, there's a chance they could have a bad run.
10:17Tonight, most of the nets were full of catfish.
10:20Ooh, catfish.
10:26Full of shrimp.
10:27They went in the net and ate all the shrimp?
10:30They got a pound of shrimp. It's all catfish.
10:35I'm going to try pushing up, going a little further up in the lake or something.
10:40Knuckles spent $45,000 buying and fixing up his boat.
10:44It was meant to be his ticket to retirement.
10:47But now he's unsure that plan will work.
10:50You know, for me to get out the business, I got to sell it.
10:53I got no retirement.
10:56But I can't sell a boat. Can't give it away.
11:01Nobody wants it.
11:04And most shrimpers agree it's getting harder to justify going out.
11:08For this boat to leave the dock, it's going to cost me over $1,000.
11:12It's killing us. The farmers is killing us.
11:16Right now, nobody want to do it no more because they're struggling.
11:20Melaina Chieve has been fishing for eight years.
11:23Like 60% of the state's shrimp boat owners,
11:26she and her husband are originally from Southeast Asia.
11:29With our education, there's nothing else we could do besides fisherman.
11:34Especially like me and my husband, like in our mid-50s.
11:38Melaina and her husband weren't able to go to college,
11:41but they hope shrimping would help their kids do the opposite.
11:44Not enough to pay, especially when you have two kids in college.
11:48You're struggling.
11:52Dock owners are feeling the impact too.
11:55Because if we don't bring no shrimp, they don't make no money either.
11:58You know, when the shrimp boats go out, they're going to kill the docks too.
12:05That's a pretty shrimp.
12:08Dean Blanchard's family has been buying and selling local shrimp for five generations.
12:13I was born in a shrimp dock. When I was a baby, they used to put me in a shrimp box.
12:18His dock, two hours south of New Orleans,
12:20was once one of the biggest shrimp suppliers in the country.
12:24But last year, he paid the lowest prices he ever has for the larger shrimp.
12:2830-something years ago, they went down from $5 to $1.30.
12:34That's because he's selling it for so little to the peeling factories.
12:38Right now, it's the cheapest I've ever seen in my life.
12:42I'm sick to my stomach. I ain't never seen nothing like this.
12:46Never, never in my life seen it this bad.
12:50After six decades in the industry, Dean's no stranger to financial challenges.
12:56From the 2010 BP oil spill to big storms.
13:01His dock had $2 million in damages after Hurricane Ida hit in 2021.
13:07Where you're standing right there wasn't even there after the storm.
13:10I mean, I've rebuilt this building at least eight, nine times.
13:16He never fixed up this part of his marina.
13:18It brings tears to your eyes. I mean, everything you work for, all your life is gone.
13:23But imports, he says, have done even more damage.
13:26We're directly correlated with imports.
13:29If a completely processed product is coming in for just over $4 a pound,
13:35that means our dockside prices have to be lower, the processes prices are lower.
13:39So to be able to try to get that market share and keep it.
13:43So you're making the same amount of money that you would in 2000, but 22 years later.
13:52Fewer boats can afford to go out.
13:54Fewer boats can afford to go out, so less shrimp is landing on Dean's dock.
14:00We're down to right under 20% of what we normally are for this time of the year.
14:06On this day we visited in May 2023, not a single shrimp boat pulled up to unload.
14:12It ain't gonna last too much longer like this.
14:15Thank God I'm almost 65 years old and I ain't got no kids in this business.
14:20Dean estimates that 96% of the docks operating when he started out have since closed down.
14:27I feel bad for the people because I know once I'm gone,
14:30they're gonna have to drive 50, 60, 70 miles to go sell their product.
14:35Just like Knuckles, when Dean retires, he doesn't think anyone will buy the company.
14:40Nobody can afford to take it over. The property's worth more than the business.
14:49Louisiana still hauls in the most shrimp of any U.S. state, over 70 million pounds in 2023.
14:56But that's a small fraction, the roughly 2 billion pounds the U.S. consumes.
15:02The American landings of shrimp cannot cover the overall consumption of shrimp.
15:08Nearly 90% of the shrimp Americans eat is imported,
15:11and much of it is sourced using controversial practices.
15:15In 2021, an International Trade Commission analysis indicated
15:19that shrimp might be the U.S. seafood market most affected by illegal fishing.
15:24Like this boat off the coast of Gambia.
15:27It had an illegal undersized net, and although the shrimp was labeled sustainable,
15:3399.9% of the seafood on board were other species like sharks and octopuses.
15:40And a lot of time, that bycatch dies on the deck and just gets thrown back into the ocean.
15:49But the majority of the shrimp the U.S. imports is farm-raised.
15:55A lot of our shrimp comes from India, where there are huge environmental concerns,
16:01as well as ongoing allegations of human rights abuses and forced labor.
16:06A 2024 Associated Press report found women in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh
16:12were peeling frozen shrimp without protective gear, which can lead to frostbite.
16:17It's kept incredibly cold to keep bacteria from proliferating.
16:22I don't know about you, but I don't want to hold ice cubes in my hand all day
16:26while I'm also trying to do very nimble work with my fingers.
16:30One of the huge issues is that these shrimp farms are
16:33isolated. They're far out on the coast.
16:37There's not OSHA. There's no one protecting and making sure that the conditions are safe.
16:43But they have few other options for work.
16:46A lot of times when these aquaculture facilities are built,
16:50other economic resources in these areas disappear.
17:04That's why we have to go to the factory.
17:06We don't have ice cubes, so we have to go to the farm.
17:10I have neck and back pain.
17:13I can't stand up.
17:16Arugula Baby is still trying to pay off an $8,500 loan
17:20she took out when her son was dying of liver disease.
17:23Since he passed, she's been raising her grandchildren alone.
17:27To get to the peeling shed, she has to pay for transportation
17:31and 25 cents to a recruiter.
17:33She earns below $4 every day,
17:36$2 under the country's minimum wage.
17:45A lot of times we will see a woman being threatened for her own safety
17:51or her family's safety unless she works, unless she meets certain quotas.
17:56Beyond the human cost, there's also an environmental one.
18:02In India, most of the farms are along coastlines,
18:05where water is plentiful and mangrove forests thrive.
18:08Those mangroves go through deforestation.
18:11They're pulled out. They're blown up with dynamite.
18:14So we lose that nursery habitat for other sea creatures,
18:17and we lose our coastline protection.
18:19When that happens, shrimp can have 10 times the carbon footprint of beef.
18:25Next, these really big ponds are dug into the land.
18:29So the shrimp live in these ponds.
18:32Chemicals and excrement from shrimp pens
18:34can leach out into surrounding environments.
18:37They can cause algae blooms and dead zones,
18:40disrupt ecosystems and contaminate water.
18:44Shrimp farms around the world have been criticized
18:46for using antibiotics to treat illness in their ponds.
18:50If you've ever ridden the subway home at rush hour,
18:53you know how it is.
18:54You're in tight. You're squeezed in tight.
18:56There's great opportunities for sickness to spread.
18:59And it's that exact same situation in these ponds,
19:02which is why antibiotic use is so incredibly high.
19:07That overexposure can lead to antimicrobial-resistant superbugs,
19:12a health concern that's estimated to have caused
19:14nearly 1.3 million deaths around the world in 2019.
19:18And some antibiotics, like nitrofurans,
19:21have been linked to liver damage and cancer.
19:24In the U.S. and European Union,
19:26almost all of these kinds of drugs are banned.
19:29So you could end up eating something that's illegal here.
19:33In 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
19:35turned away 51 shipments of shrimp because of banned antibiotics.
19:40But the organization checks just about 2% of imports.
19:45So what happens with that other 96 to 98% of seafood that's coming in?
19:52The major health concern here is the lack of testing of imported shrimp,
19:57the amount of banned substances that may be carried in these shrimp.
20:01A 2017 LSU study found that 30 out of 42 samples
20:05tested from stores around Baton Rouge had antibiotics or antimicrobials.
20:10And that's largely due to the fact that the FDA
20:13is responsible for more than 50 million imports annually.
20:18And there's just not enough work power to inspect everything coming in.
20:24In the last year, the U.S. Department of Commerce
20:27has imposed duties on shrimp from India, Vietnam, and Ecuador.
20:31But these efforts, Louisianan shrimpers tell us,
20:33haven't been enough to help their incomes.
20:36Imported shrimp is still flooding the market.
20:40That's why locals like Kristen have been advocating for more regulation.
20:45He's a part of the Louisiana Shrimp Task Force,
20:48which works with the state government on long-term solutions.
20:51We need country-of-origin labeling on restaurant menus
20:55so at least when people buy, they're buying and making a choice.
20:59In 2019, the Louisiana legislature passed a law
21:02requiring restaurants to disclose if their shrimp is imported.
21:06But some restaurants still passed off imported as domestic.
21:11The state's health department has handed down 2,600 violations
21:15since the law went into effect, but no restaurants were ever fined.
21:19In May 2024, the governor signed a bill for heavier fines
21:22on restaurants that mislabel seafood.
21:24If they're busted, they could be fined up to $2,000.
21:29While Justin says he'll never touch imported shrimp,
21:32he can understand why restaurants turn to it
21:34when the local stuff gets expensive.
21:36They're looking for a good product that will get the register to ring,
21:40and so you can't blame them either.
21:43With dock prices so low, he paid $4 a pound in 2023,
21:47almost half of what he was paying two years ago.
21:50I understand that. When I get a cheap price,
21:52I know the shrimpers out there in the boats are probably getting hammered.
21:56But if it went back to $7 a pound, I'd still buy it.
22:01I just have to go up on my price.
22:03A price he says he's lucky his customers would probably pay.
22:07You're talking to one of the busiest po'boy shops in the city.
22:10What about the corner stores who are just living from day to day?
22:14There has to be some kind of medium. I just hope it'll work itself out.
22:18This has been little, small holes pecking away
22:22for 30, 40, 50, 60 years, you know?
22:26And it's, yeah, it's coming where, uh-oh, it's starting to take water.
22:30We're going down, you know, in the seafood industry.
22:38The fact is the U.S. eats so much shrimp
22:41that the stuff caught in the Gulf could never cover it all.
22:44So farm crustaceans will probably always fill that gap.
22:47Got to import because we can't supply the whole United States.
22:50But put a quote on it.
22:53It has to come down from Washington.
22:56It has to be some work done up there with, like, regulating the import.
23:00Dean wants federal assistance for shrimpers.
23:03There wouldn't be a farmer left in business
23:06if they had to live like we live.
23:09They're being subsidized for this.
23:11Shrimpers should be considered farmers of the sea, but we're not.
23:14More inspections of seafood at U.S. ports
23:17and better traceability of shrimp from boat to plate would also help.
23:21But some experts say it comes down to better consumer awareness
23:24of the health benefits of wild-caught shrimp over farms,
23:27like how the salmon industry got people to pay more for wild-caught
23:30thanks to messaging that it was more nutrient-dense.
23:33If people would know exactly what they're buying
23:36and they know exactly what they're feeding their kids,
23:39they wouldn't mind paying a couple of cents more
23:42for a product that don't have antibiotics.
23:45In the grocery store aisle, don't be fooled by tricky labeling
23:48like product of U.S.A. or prepared in the U.S.A.
23:52That could be referring to where the shrimp was last processed,
23:55not necessarily where it was caught.
23:58Flip to the back of the package and look for the phrase
24:01farm-raised or wild-caught in, followed by a country name.
24:04That should tell you where it's from.
24:07Purchase U.S. farmed or U.S. wild-caught shrimp.
24:12In the U.S., farmed shrimp are held to very strict regulations
24:16in regards to what antibiotics they can use and how much.
24:20And when you're at a restaurant...
24:22I always ask, where is that shrimp from?
24:25And if that restaurant can't answer that, then I don't order it.
24:31Or maybe we should just eat a little less shrimp
24:34and take it back to being a special occasion item.
24:37Backed by consumer awareness,
24:40maybe then shrimpers can save their sinking ship.
24:43We have to have it, and we will always have it.
24:47Parkway Bakery will always have Louisiana shrimp.
24:51I'll get on a boat my damn self, you know.
24:57This is my father-in-law and my wife right here.
25:00And we met back 6, 7 years ago in a po'boy competition.
25:06And that's how we met.
25:08I won by a hair.
25:10You know, I won in the short run.
25:12She definitely won in the long run.
25:14No, I'm not allowed to bring it up.