Legislation initially intended to require those selling seafood in Mississippi to be transparent about where the food comes from, has been altered to create a task force to tackle the state’s mislabeling crisis.
House Bill 602, which cruised through its chamber without a dissenting vote back in February, was gutted by the Senate before lawmakers in the chamber voted unanimously to advance an amended version of the bill on Thursday.
Instead of expanding an existing state law requiring restaurants and others selling certain seafood items to advertise the food’s country of origin, the text now creates the “Mississippi Seafood Labeling Task Force.” The goal is to bring a panel of experts and governing figures to the table to configure a new
According to the bill, the task force would include:
- Mississippi’s governor
- The executive director of the Department of Marine Resources
- Mississippi’s agriculture commissioner
- The executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission
- A member of the Mississippi Restaurant Association
- The director of the Division of Tourism
- A gubernatorial-appointed individual with a valid commercial fishing license
The department heads and governing figures can appoint someone to take their place on the task force if they choose to.
If the amended bill is enacted into law by Gov. Tate Reeves, the committee would be required to meet within 30 days of the legislation’s passage. After conferring for well over a year, the body is expected to develop a comprehensive report by Jan. 1, 2027, addressing seafood labeling laws, genetic testing, and marketing strategies to promote locally sourced seafood.
Current law mandates processors, wholesalers, and food service establishments to transparently inform consumers whether the shrimp and crawfish being sold are local or from a foreign body of water. Advocates for expanded labeling laws want the regulation to apply to all seafood items.
Seafood labeling has become a hot-button issue in Mississippi, especially on the Gulf Coast, after Biloxi eatery Mary Mahoney’s Old French House and its co-owner, Anthony Cvitanovich, were sentenced for importing approximately 58,750 pounds of frozen, foreign fish species that were sold as local, premium species between December 2013 and November 2019.
Mary Mahoney’s supplier, Quality Poultry and Seafood Inc. — the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s largest seafood distributor — and two of its managers, were subsequently handed a scathing sentence from Lady Justice for being the ring leaders in the scheme to purposely mislead consumers.
While on the surface the judicial process playing out appeared to be a big win for transparency, a startling investigation found that mislabeling imported seafood as locally caught products is the norm, rather than the exception. SeaD Consulting, a firm specializing in genetic testing to monitor mislabeling and substitution fraud in the seafood industry, tested food from 44 coastal restaurants. In the assessment, it was discovered that only eight, or 18%, of the eateries examined were properly advertising what they were selling.
“Mississippi Gulf Coast seafood is a brand of its own. Gulf Coast seafood is something we hold sacred here in our state and across the southeast,” Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson said. “We are 100% in favor of making sure that people know if they’re buying real Gulf Coast seafood or some foreign import that they would not eat if they knew it happened to be that.”
House Bill 602 will head back to its chamber of origin for lawmakers to assess changes made by the Senate.
