The Gulf State Park Tradition...

[wabbott]

The 52nd Annual National Shrimp Festival is taking place in Gulf Shores this weekend. It was originally started to support the local shrimp fisherman and industry and has kept that purpose. We went to it and camped at GSP in 2022. I came across this article that the Festival uses DNA testing on the shrimp served at the festival to ensure they are local and not foreign imports.

https://www.gulfshoresnews.com/dna-testing-has-been-effective-at-national-shrimp-festival

The year we were there, testing was done and only ONE vendor used local shrimp. However the test used back then took DAYS to get the results back. This year the test being used returns results in a few hours.

The vendors sign a contract with the festival to use local shrimp only.

Good for them (the festival). BTW, this time of year the Gulf Coast has beautiful weather.

Bama Ed

PS - DNA testing shrimp sounds pretty high tech to me .....

Agree with your opinion on the Gulf Coast fall wx. We're headed to Destin/PC Beach in 10 days.

 

[bama_ed]

As it turns out, after the Shrimp Festival the Shrimp DNA test was applied to local restaurants claiming to offer "local" shrimp. Turns out 57% of the 40+ locations WERE local shrimp but (to me) an alarming 43% were imports. Who knows if the restaurants knowingly made the false claim or if they were duped by their suppliers.

The article linked below does name names of who passed the 2025 test and also who failed a 2024 test but improved/passed a 2025 test.

https://www.al.com/news/mobile/2025...-results-in-this-alabama-gulf-coast-city.html

I would like to know who failed the test (not named in the article) in one or both years so I could boycott them when I visit.

Bama Ed

 

[team bradfield]

Sounds like a job for ICE