Seafood. It’s the main attraction of the 40th annual Seafood Festival in Morehead City, but as more than 40 food vendors prepare their menus, organizers are sending a clear, uncompromising message. If it isn’t caught in the U.S., you can’t sell it here.
We’re just taking a little bit of a harder stance this year,” Director of the NC Seafood Festival, Nick Eatmon, said. “We are the NC Seafood Festival. It sounds almost too simple just to say that, but if we’re going to be the NC Seafood Festival, we better make sure that it’s NC seafood.
This year, the festival says it doesn’t want any imported seafood coming through the festival. To verify the authenticity, the festival is using teams to enforce a strict carrot-and-stick strategy.
“We’re also checking the receipts of the food vendors, and those vendors that purchase local NC seafood, the festival is kicking 10 percent cash back to them.”
For the fleets out on the water, that financial incentive is creating an immediate demand for their catch right here at home.
“You can come up and buy shrimp in a cup. You know they’re local, and you can meet the fishermen that caught them,” Monica Smith, a commercial fishing advocate, said.
Organizers say third-party testing teams will do DNA testing on the fish throughout the weekend, but here’s the deal: vendors caught using imported seafood won’t have a spot at the festival in the near future.
“$1,000 fine, and also that vendor would not be able to apply for the seafood festival for five years,” Eatmon said.
It’s a sweeping operational shift, designed to make sure the millions of dollars spent this weekend land back into the hands of the North Carolina fishing community.
“People come to the coastal counties to go on vacation, and they come to eat seafood,” Zach Davis of the NC Seafood Festival board of directors said. “And those restaurants are getting it from their local fishermen.”
Dining and Cooking