JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — There are shrimp shenanigans going on in the City of Jacksonville.
That’s according to a new study that found more than half of 44 local restaurants surveyed explicitly misrepresented the origins of the shrimp they served to customers.
Jacksonville is known for its shrimp.
Our Mayor recently sent 20 pounds of Mayport Shrimp to the Mayor of Buffalo when the Jags lost in the first round of the playoffs, and we’ve even got a baseball team named after them.
“The US shrimping industry began in Fernandina Beach in 1899,” said Mike Eddy, owner of Beacon Fisheries, a seafood processing facility in Jacksonville.
But Eddy explained the shrimping industry in Northeast Florida has been struggling for years.
“Because of the decline in the fisheries and the economics of it, we’re losing our heritage,” Eddy said.
Southern Shrimp Alliance Board member Christine Gala argued one of the big factors contributing to the decline is the false advertising of local and wild-caught shrimp.
“When in fact, they’re probably eating imported shrimp from a shrimp farm in Ecuador,” Gala said.
A new study commissioned by the SSA used genetic testing to fact-check restaurants’ claims about the origins of their shrimp in eight states.
“Florida ranked at the bottom. The worst offender,” Gala said.
Jacksonville fared poorly as well, with 25 of the 44 restaurants surveyed explicitly misrepresenting the origin of their shrimp.
Six of those are even listed on the Jax Mayport Shrimp and Seafood Trail.
“If you want to sell farm-raised shrimp, just call it shrimp, but don’t call it Mayport Shrimp. Don’t mislead people,” Eddy said.
And shrimp-industry experts argue that what may seem like shrimp-sized lies come at a huge cost to the industry and customers.
Mislabeled shrimp costs the US shrimping industry anywhere from $300 to $600 million a year.
It not only costs the shrimping industry, but also consumers, who paid an average of $2 more per plate for falsely advertised American wild-caught shrimp, according to the study.
Gala argued enacting labeling requirements for seafood products in Florida would be a big help, as states with those laws on the books have authenticity rates four times higher than those that don’t.
“It would make it a lot clearer to them you can’t put pictures of the shrimp boats in your market and pretend like you’re getting them there right off the dock,” Gala said.
In 2025, legislation was filed in Florida that would have imposed labeling requirements.
The bill never got a hearing in the Florida House and passed only one Senate committee.
Gala said the industry will be ramping up its efforts to get a bill across the finish line in 2026.
You can find the full list of local restaurants the study determined honestly represented the source of their shrimp here.
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