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Shrimpers struggle to compete against imports
By Lindsay Danzell
Contributing Writer
Bob Waggoner, head chef at Charleston Grill, is a shrimp connoisseur and, as such, likes his shrimp local and fresh, passing by Asian frozen shrimp like cheap box wine.
Wild-caught American shrimp simply tastes better, he said.
“It’s an incredible product,” said Waggoner. “I could talk all day about shrimp.”
But, in the face of growing competition from Asian farm-raised shrimp, Eddie Gordon, executive director of Wild American Shrimp, has a different reason to buy and eat locally: the economy.
Joanie Cooksey co-owns Crosby’s Fish and Shrimp on Folly Road with her twin sister, Ellie Berry. Crosby’s, situated on Folly Creek, sells seafood purchased from local shrimpers, crabbers and fishermen.
“Last year we had to beg somebody (to buy shrimp),” Cooksey said. When boats would come to unload their hauls last year, Cooksey remembered thinking: “What are we going to do with these?”
In the last 10 years, the sisters have witnessed a collapse of the market. Local consumers aren’t buying local shrimp, and what shrimp they sell barely covers the cost of keeping the dock open, the boats running and the store afloat.
“Hurting bad,” the twins said in unison about their store.
“We are basically hanging in because we love what we do,” Cooksey said.
At the dock outside the store, the Hailley Marie is being outfitted for the upcoming shrimping season. Cooksey’s husband, Neal Cooksey, has run the boat for at least 25 years.
Every shrimp boat “re-ups,” or undergoes maintenance, before the season. Re-ups often can cost $7,000 to $12,000 for new netting, engine work and other necessities.
Although last season saw a surplus of shrimp, boats visiting the Crosby’s dock have dwindled.
For the last five or six years, only Charleston shrimpers and fishermen have used the Crosby’s dock. Before, men would come up from Georgia and the business would make money providing ice and packing services, Smith said.
Shrimpers and shrimp vendors face a multitude of reasons why sales are down, but the folks at Crosby’s, Wild American Shrimp, the S.C. Shrimpers Association and the S.C. Seafood Alliance point to imported shrimp as the biggest hurdle the local industry faces.
Asian, pond-raised shrimp is saturating the United States market, luring restaurants with cheap, uniform shrimp, Joanie Cooksey said.
“Some people aren’t even aware of what shrimp they’re getting in a restaurant,” Berry said.
Cheap, imported shrimp may take over the shrimp market, pushing U.S. shrimpers out of work, Gordon said. Once U.S. competition is gone, the Asian shrimpers will be able to raise prices on their pond-raised shrimp, he added.
Crosby’s owners can see it happening already.
People starting out in the shrimp business have been unable to afford boat payments on top of paying for staff and fuel. And those who have boats paid off are barely scraping by, Cooksey said, adding that when a better opportunity presents itself, they often cash in their chips.
“People just can’t afford to operate,” she said.
Crosby’s remains one of the few stores that pays more to the boats than its retail markup. If they are selling the shrimp at $8 per pound, shrimpers make $5 per pound, Cooksey said.
That’s a rarity, Gordon said. Most shrimpers make between $1.50 and $2.50 per pound, a huge drop from 2000 when shrimpers made between $4 and $5 per pound, he added.
“We give what we can give to the boat and try to sell (the shrimp) through here,” Berry said.
Current shrimp wholesale prices mimic 1960s prices, Gordon said. His organization has claimed that retail prices are often 300% of dock prices.
His statement, however, was refuted by Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co. spokeswoman Rita Postell. She called the claim a “ridiculous, exaggerated percentage.”
“We’d be selling shrimp and not groceries, it would be that profitable,” she said. Postell went as far as to speak for the entire grocery industry and said there was no business making that large a profit off the shrimp industry.
Piggly Wiggly Carolina buys from local shrimpers and wholesalers directly, Postell said.
Selling shrimp to processing plants usually yields less money for the shrimpers, but often their only other option is to let the catch spoil.
Currently, no shrimp processing plant exists in South Carolina and shrimp must be shipped to plants in the Gulf of Mexico region.
Several years ago, the United States enacted tariffs to impede the flow of imported shrimp into the national market. The tariffs were to be redistributed to domestic shrimp boats and processing plants.
The first payout happened in December 2006, but most of the money went to the large processing plants that also take imported shrimp, said Georgia Tisdale, marketing administrator for the S.C. Shrimpers Association.
Around $10,000 to $12,000 went to a few shrimp boats, she said.
In 2003 and 2004, Clemson University conducted research to identify ways to sustain the Carolina shrimp industry. The research produced two options: establishing niche marketing and creating a shrimp processing plant.
Wild American Shrimp and The South Carolina Shrimp Processing & Seafood Co. answered South Carolina shrimpers’ distress calls.
Wild American Shrimp created a certification program to distinguish American, wild-caught shrimp from imported shrimp. The niche marketing is similar to the certification program developed for Angus beef and Mississippi catfish.
Working on Clemson’s second recommendation, The South Carolina Shrimp Processing & Seafood Co. will become South Carolina’s only shrimp processing plant and will work to help shrimpers make more money when selling wholesale. Originally scheduled to open in May 2007, financial restraints have pushed the date to August or September, Tisdale said.
Representatives for The South Carolina Shrimp Processing & Seafood Co., which will be located in Williamsburg County, could not be reached for comment.
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