A shrimp fisherman based in Louisiana is suing Walmart claiming the company used a photo of his vessel without his permission to promote sales of imported shrimp.
George Barisich, a shrimp fisherman and the president of the United Commercial Fishermen’s Association, told WWL the company is using a photo of his vessel, the FJG, without his permission. Barisich said the photo was used near a case of shrimp imported from Indonesia and Ecuador.
"The imported shrimp is putting us out of business, and they're using our likenesses to sell more imported shrimp," Barisich told WWL Louisiana in March. "My daddy's turning over in his grave right now."
Barisich told SeafoodSource he found out about the photo from a friend.
"One of my good partners happened to walk in there and see it, and said 'Captain George is going to be pissed when he sees this,'" Barisich said.
He said he's been an advocate for local shrimpers for years, and promotes the industry through running overnight shrimp tours for people interested in learning more about the fishery.
The lawsuit claims the placement of the photo of the FJG suggests it was the source of the shrimp, potentially misleading customers.
"They couldn't have picked a worse person to do this to," he said. "If it had been domestic shrimp under there, I would have said 'go for it,'" Barisich said.
He added it comes at a time shrimpers are having trouble making ends meet on low prices. During the season last year, Barisich said he managed to catch 7,000 pounds of shrimp in one trip on a good fishing day – and ended up getting just USD 4,200 (EUR 3,692) for the catch, less than he would have received fishing it 30 years ago.
"I just tied to boat up, I said 'I can't make it like this,'" Barisich said.
Walmart, in a statement, said that it sells a selection of Gulf shrimp and “asked the store to merchandise only Gulf shrimp below that sign to ensure there is no confusion.”
The lawsuit comes just a few months after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission issued new guidance to seafood restaurants warning that any décor that implies the seafood they serve is local when it isn’t is illegal and could result in fines. According to the FTC, use of the decorations would be a false claim and constitute lying in advertising.
Seafood Development (SeaD) Consulting has also found evidence of foreign shrimp being claimed as domestically caught shrimp in Louisiana-based restaurants, finding at least 33 percent of shrimp served is not locally sourced and that multiple restaurants were misrepresenting foreign shrimp as local. Another test of restaurants in Florida found 96 percent of the shrimp tested was imported despite being largely marketed as a domestic product.
A recent report by the U.S. International Trade Commission also indicated U.S. consumers are routinely misinformed about whether the shrimp they’ve been served at restaurants is wild-caught domestically or farmed in other countries.
Shrimp industry stakeholders have been encouraging U.S. restaurants to sell locally sourced shrimp, and the Southern Shrimp Alliance has supported calls for tariffs on imported seafood, arguing the U.S. government’s trade policies were harming the domestic seafood sector.
Shrimp landings in the Southern U.S. dropped to historic lows in 2024, with Gulf landings coming in at 45.8 percent below average and landings in the South Atlantic dropping by 74.7 percent compared to historical averages.
