It stinks. Local tongues have been wagging for a couple of weeks now about a WKRG report discussing restaurants not serving grouper, as advertised. This is a recent problem, according to the Southeastern Fisheries Alliance, one that has exploded only in the last three years. Federal restrictions, activist recreational fisherman, wholesalers, distributors and restaurant owners all share some of the blame.

There just is not enough grouper or snapper available year round to meet the demand both at home and in restaurants. But the causes are complex, according to Pete Barber, President of the Alabama Seafood Association.

“The short answer is that a lot of local product is seasonal, you just cannot get it locally all year. This is due to strange management practices on the federal level that demand times when certain fish cannot be available,” Barber said.

Others echoed this view, that the National Marine Fisheries Service has done a disservice with its management practices, “disrupting a continuous supply of certain types of fish that could be available year round,” continued Barber. The result is it is very difficult for restaurants to purchase locally to meet demand.

Many I spoke with put the blame on recreational fishermen. For years, recreational fishermen across the coast, with deep pockets, have pushed for regulations on the commercial fishery that limit the methods, size, time of year and amount of fish caught domestically. It is interesting to note that many these fishermen are pro-regulation when it comes to fishing, yet are strongly against regulation in their own businesses.

Additionally, large corporations that have established expensive, massive fishing fleets, trolling way out in the Gulf, have put their money behind supporting these limits as well. And you thought everyone wanted you to have fresh, local fish. Hey, some of these pro-regulation types may even have restaurants themselves – talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Water, fish and shellfish are all around us – you would think in abundance, or at least enough to make it easy to get. The fact is you can not be too sure unless you actually view the fish before it is filleted to know what type it is. Due to the quotas set on red snapper, prices have risen 30-50 percent.

A wholesaler or distributor will pay about $3 a pound to a fisherman for grouper. The distributor then has to cut the fish into fillets, which increases the price to around $7 a pound. The result is that he has to charge at a minimum $10 a pound to restaurants to make any money.

Bob Jones of the Southeastern Fisheries Association, a trade group representing the commercial fishing industry, says any businessman knows if he is buying “grouper” for $3 a pound, it is not what he is getting. But, many times the buyer is duped, purchasing what he thinks is grouper for say $11 a pound but really is $3 a pound box of perch. So the blame really cannot be placed at any particular link in the chain.

“You would be hard pressed to find Asian catfish on any menu – it is always sold as something else,” stated Jones. And the cheating is rampant, beginning in Vietnam where the catfish is often put in packages labeled incorrectly. Distributors and wholesalers deal with pre-packaged product and could get a box marked grouper and sell it that way because they do not open the box.

But, Jones remarked that “once it comes to the US, even if labeled correctly there is nothing that stops the US distributor from putting it in another box labeled grouper.” His opinion is that most of the substitution and the blame lay with restaurants.

To eliminate the problem, regulators need to force restaurants to sell a fish for what it is. But according to an article in the Santa Monica Sea Log, a labeling law is not on the top of the FDA list. In 2005, NMFS created a task force to address the issue of “species substitution,” only to find the FDA does not even track the number of mislabeled products found during routine labeling inspections.

The article stated that of the 1,350 (in 2006) FDA inspectors employed, “only 85 work primarily with seafood.” The FDA sees its role in safety, not fraud. Recently the NMFS National Seafood Inspection Laboratory in Pascagoula examined products for species substitution over a nine-year period (1989-87) and found that 37 percent of the fish and 13 percent of other seafood products were mislabeled. A report they released concerning this issue said that as of press time, they were conducting a market survey by collecting samples from randomly selected vendors selling red snapper. Eighty percent of the snappers tested were mislabeled.

You need to ask your server, and ask again, if the fish on your plate is what they advertised, as I began to do last weekend, to make sure you are getting what you paid for. And pay attention to the taste. But it can be easy to be fooled.

As I ended my conversation with Jones, his parting comment was apt. “Most restaurants believe, and they are likely right, that once they serve you a couple of beers or margaritas you will not know the difference between any two fish,” he concluded.

Kinnon Phillips is Lagniappe cuisine editor. Contact him at kphillips@lagniappemobile.com.

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