At the turn of the nineteenth century, Biloxi was known as The Seafood Capital of the World – its factories were world leaders. Today, the seafood industry continues to play an important role in the diversity of city’s local economy. Photo: Ed Lallo/Newsroom Ink
by Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News Editor
Today, first impressions of Biloxi are more Las Vegas than cannery row. Located behind the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino is the heart of the city’s thriving shrimp industry. Photo: Ed Lallo/Newsroom Ink
At the turn of the nineteenth century, Biloxi was known as “The Seafood Capital of the World” – its factories were world leaders. Today, the seafood industry continues to play an important role in the diversity of city’s local economy.
In 1890 more than two million pounds of oysters and 614,000 pounds of shrimp were processed by Biloxi’s canneries. By 1902, those numbers had increased as twelve canneries reporting a combined catch of 5,988,788 pounds of oysters and 4,424,000 pounds of shrimp.
Today, first impressions of Biloxi are more Las Vegas than cannery row. Casino after casino with hundred feet flashing neon signs, line areas once filled with canneries or mom and pop hotels. Located behind the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino is the heart of the city’s thriving shrimp industry.
Biloxi’s Downtown Dock
The city’s downtown commercial dock provides 51 berths for the local commercial shrimp fleet. Photo: Ed Lallo/Newsroom Ink
The city’s downtown commercial dock provides 51 berths for the local commercial shrimp fleet. This is one of four area docks that offer space for commercial fishermen, mostly shrimpers. It is here you will find more than shrimp boat after shrimp boat, here you will find a seafood center with local fishermen selling direct off the boat to both locals and tourists.
About 75 percent of Mississippi’s shrimp harvest is brown shrimp, which are most abundant from June to October. In the fall and spring shrimpers also bring in the sweeter varieties, white shrimp and Mississippi pink shrimp.
For shrimper Eddie Rhodes who has been shrimping full time since 1998, this has been a good year. “I sell directly to customers, as well as to processors,” he said as he worked at mending one of his nets. “I had one three trip this year that netted more than 53,000 lbs. I could have caught more, but I was foolish enough not to bring enough ice.”
Biloxi shrimpers don’t have to go far. Shrimp are plentiful close to the shore, as well as past the three-mile barrier islands.
For shrimper Eddie Rhodes who has been shrimping full time since 1998, this has been a good year. He mends shrimp nets on his boat while at dock. Photo: Ed Lallo/Newsroom Ink
Rhoades, who fills a lot of custom orders for clients, says he is really looking forward to the white shrimp season. “All the conditions are right for a very good season. The shrimp are here, they are already beginning to show up bays,” he said.
At the age of 56, he still has a passion for shrimping and loves the independence it offers. The number of shrimp boats in the Gulf has decreased drastically and he is disappointed that the industry might fade away due to lack of interested by the younger generation. Along the coast, according to him, “you just don’t see any new people getting into it.”
Vietnamese Shrimping Families
Today’s Biloxi Vietnamese shrimping community runs some of the largest, quality oriented operations in the state. Lien Nguyen, who sells shrimp at Dock 10 with his wife also Lien, weighs shrimp for a customer. Photo: Ed Lallo/Newsroom Ink
Richard Gollot was a native Biloxi seafood dealer and owner of Golden Gulf Coast Packing Company. In the 1970’s he was responsible for bringing Vietnamese from New Orleans to work at local oyster processing houses. Whole families working in the oyster industry would save their money and then pool it together buy an old shrimp boat.
“In the early 1980’s the Vietnamese came to me and asked me if I would buy their shrimp, because nobody would buy their product,” Gollott told the Southern Foodways Alliance during an interview in 2008. “I rented a place and we started unloading shrimp. Some of the boats that showed up you would swear wouldn’t get out of the Bay. They were so rickety dinky and everything you know.”
Today’s Biloxi Vietnamese shrimping community runs some of the largest, quality oriented operations in the state.
Lien Nguyen sorts shrimp for a waiting customer. Photo: Ed Lallo/Newsroom Ink
Located on the commercial dock halfway between the Hard Rock and the bay, Lien and Lien Nguyen work frantically to fulfill customer’s orders from one of their two boats docked at the wharf. With “fresh shrimp” signs everywhere, and bottle water for waiting customers, the husband and wife team sort, weigh and clean shrimp for a line of waiting customers.
Zelda Courtney has been coming from Baton Rogue to buy shrimp from the Nguyen’s for nearly ten years. Standing in the hot morning sun, she waits as the couple prepares her order for 100 lbs. of 20-25’s brown shrimp.
“I have been buying from the Nguyen’s for almost ten years because they have the best tasting shrimp on the Gulf, as well as the best prices and service,” said one customer who traveled from Baton Rouge to buy shimp from the Lien’s. Photo: Ed Lallo/Newsroom Ink
“I have been buying from the Nguyen’s for almost ten years because they have the best tasting shrimp on the Gulf, as well as the best prices and service,” she said, “I usually make two trips a year here. I’ll take this home to freeze. I use them all year for gumbos etouffees and other dishes.”
“In a recent economic study by Mississippi State University Coastal Research and Extension Center, the state’s commercial shrimp industry produced a total economic impact of $141.77 million, created 3,091 jobs, and generated an income of $57.44 million,” said Joe Jewell the director of Marine Services at the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. “To date, the number of shrimp licenses sold for the current season is 997, close to the annual average since Hurricane Katrina. Prior to Katrina however, the average number of shrimp licenses was nearly 1,800.”
According to Jewell the dramatic drop in shrimp licenses since Katrina has been directly attributed to rising fuel costs, loss of infrastructure, and lower shrimp prices due to cheap foreign imports flooding the market. While shrimp landings were down in 2013, preliminary data show an increase for the current year. With a fall white shrimp season that looks promising, this year’s season looks much improved.
Visitor Comments