When 80% of the restaurants in Louisiana are serving cheap imported shrimp, you know something is wrong.
So much cheap imported frozen shrimp has flooded the market, one local producer has had to shut down their shrimp processing plant.
Such is the case with Lafitte Frozen Foods in Violet. The plant can process upwards of 120,000 pounds of shrimp a day.
Friday, the plant operated for the last time, at least for now.
Company Vice President Bobby Samanie told WWL-TV: “This is the first time we’ve ever had to actually say hold it, we’ve got to take a break.”
Lafitte’s freezers are packed with frozen shrimp. But nobody is buying right now. That’s because the U.S. is buying close to two-billion pounds of frozen, imported shrimp from overseas which has undercut the cost of local producers they are facing an uncertain future.
“When they hurt the factories, they hurt the commercial fishermen that sells to the factories,” Shrimper Ricky Robin told the broadcaster. “We’re getting something like a dollar a pound at the factory. The shrimp should be worth 3-4 dollars a pound. Three or four months ago they were.”
Robin, like many other shrimpers, want the state to step in and ban the importation of imported shrimp the way it did with crawdads from foreign producers.
Robin maintains foreign shrimp just doesn’t have the quality as fresh caught Louisiana shrimp.
“When you’re eating imported shrimp, you really don’t know where they came from to start with. When you look at them, they’re beautiful.
But when you look at Louisiana shrimp they don’t look as good because they got more flavor in them.”
