MS Coast seafood industry hopes for change after second business admits mislabeling fish

In harbors and factories, news of the fraud spread fast.

“It’s a tremendous slap in the face,” said Ryan Bradley, the executive director of Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United.

“It’s totally unfortunate,” said David Gautier, who sells seafood from the Pass Christian Harbor.

But the Coast’s commercial fishermen and seafood processors were not surprised that Quality Poultry & Seafood pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiring with Mary Mahoney’s Old French House restaurant to pass off cheap, foreign fish as fresh Gulf catch.

Many had guessed Quality was next. The federal government did not name the business when Mary Mahoney’s pleaded guilty this summer. Court records unsealed Tuesday confirmed that Quality sold Mahoney’s the misbranded fish, and that both businesses profited by charging the same price they would for premium local seafood.

Authorities now say Quality will forfeit $1 million, pay a criminal fine of $150,000 and could spend up to five years on probation. Its sales manager, Todd Rosetti, and business manager, James “Jim” Gunkel, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and could also face penalties.

The criminal case cracked the guise of a place that has long worshiped local seafood.

“If I were a betting man, I’d guarantee you there’s other people doing it,” Gautier said. “They just haven’t gotten caught yet.”

Fishermen condemn mislabeled seafood

The latest blows stung, Bradley said. He said it is hard for honest fishermen who abide by strict regulations to compete with Quality, the largest seafood wholesaler in the state. It was not a victimless crime, he said, because fishermen’s prices have plummeted while Quality apparently profited.

“They don’t treat the real fishermen right,” he said. “Now we know why. They didn’t feel like they needed us.”

The news also struck Bethany Fayard, a fourth-generation processor and distributor whose father owns Ocean Springs Seafood. The federal government fined her father in the 1980s for buying imported shrimp, adding it with domestic shrimp and not properly labeling the box, she said. She was a young teenager, and said it was hard when the news spread to friends and even some of her school teachers.

Now, she wonders why a seafood processor would not know better, given how the federal government has cracked down in the past and how much oversight processors endure. She said in the past six months, the Food and Drug Administration, Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Marine Resources all showed up at her plant for surprise inspections.

She does not believe what Quality and Mary Mahoney’s did was right. But she also said she understands the pressures in a market flooded with cheap imports.

“These people are doing this out of desperation,” she said. “It would be better to shut the doors than break the law.”

Fishermen and processors say they suspect restaurants have long used imports legally and illegally because they are cheaper than domestic fish and can meet the high demands of consumers. But the fishermen have protested imports for decades. In 2021, they tried but failed to force state leaders to require restaurants to label imported seafood, as Alabama and Louisiana have done already. Supporters of that law argued labeling imports would level the playing field by letting customers know they are eating fish from overseas.

Warning for MS Coast industry

Fishermen and processors said they were hopeful the the government’s penalties would convince other seafood businesses to follow the rules. Gautier said the government should work more with the seafood industry to help, not hinder it.

The families at Quality and Mary Mahoney’s are “good people,” he said. “They just got caught up in something they shouldn’t have been doing.”

Sympathy is harder for fishermen. Bradley said many felt disparaged by customers’ outpouring of support for Mary Mahoney’s even after the business pleaded guilty. He, too, hopes customers begin to demand fresh, local seafood.

The case could become a lesson.

“It looks like the government is trying to make an example out of these two,” Gautier said. “Maybe other people will straighten up and fly right.”

And now, Fayard predicted, any processor or restaurant still labeling imports as domestic will face the federal government sooner, rather than later.

“People are looking,” she said. “People care.”

Staff writers Anita Lee and Margaret Baker contributed reporting.