Gulf Crown Seafood’s Jeff Floyd (l) and son Jon agree that every year in the seafood business is unique. Each year new problems arise and are added to the same old ones continuously sticking around. Photo: Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News
by Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News Editor
Gulf Crown Seafood’s Jeff Floyd and his son Jon agree that every year in the seafood business is unique. Each year new problems arise and are added to the same old ones continuously sticking around. Last year new problems arising from Covid and Hurricane Ida were added to the old ones; H2B visiting worker visa, labor shortages, import prices and product availability.
“We weren’t affected directly by Hurricane Ida,” said the senior of the Floyds. “But without production this plant doesn’t survive. They only way we get production is with the boats. I don’t know exactly how many we lost out of the fleet from the storm, but talking to those at the docks their were a lot a fisherman whose boats won’t be able to be salvaged.”
Jon Floyd said the plant shuttered for three days as Ida struck to the east of them, devastating the heart of the Louisiana seafood industry. Photo: Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News
Gulf Crown Seafood in Delcambre is one of approximately seven shrimp processors left Louisiana. Before Ida struck in August last year they had struggled through May and June with little product flowing through the plant.
“There was hardly any production what-so-ever,” chimed in the younger Floyd, whose desk sits across from his dad’s. “Right before the Texas season opened in June things started to pick up and it stated good all the way through Christmas. We were running two shifts a day with most of the shrimp coming from the bug Gulf freezer boats.
Jon said the plant shuttered for three days as Ida struck to the east of them, devastating the heart of the Louisiana seafood industry.
“We were worried production would not pick up because a lot of the fishermen and docks didn’t have insurance,” he explained. “It’s a domino affect, if you don’t have boats bringing in catch to the docks there is no need for a dock, and vice versa there is no need for a plant.”
Fortunately production did pick up from the boats that managed to survive the storm. Gulf Crown is one of the largest production plants along the Gulf of Mexico.
“I know if the production is there we can run as much, or more, than anybody. We were processing more than 100,000 lbs. of shrimp a day,” said Jeff. “We kept running around the clock till Thanksgiving,”
After Christmas the shrimp harvest in Louisiana usually falls off for the winter months, with the plant procession around 20,000 lbs. of shrimp daily. But January of this year was different, and both Floyds can’t tell you why. “We really had a great January and we really don’t know what caused it, they said in unison.
Gulf Crown can process more than 100,000 lbs. of shrimp daily. Before Covid worker unload bags of shrimp coming off the boats. Photo: Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News
Dean Blanchard, who operates one of the largest docks on the Gulf of Mexico, told Gulf Seafood News earlier that the current year January landings was the most he has ever seen, “I’ve been doing this for 40-years and I bought more shrimp this January than I did the month of May, which is usually our best month.”
Jeff says it possible that Hurricane Ida stirred the waters of the Gulf allowing shrimp to survive in areas where they have not been previously found.
A large portion of the shrimp processed at Gulf Crown head to their two major buyers, Arista, founded in New York in 1930, and Ocean Select of Beaux Bridge, a company known for catfish but has rapidly developed shrimp sales of the last ten years.
“We process more than 15-million pounds of shrimp annual,” said Jon. “We ship throughout the U.S to a number of distributors, as well as restaurants.”
The younger Floyd said Covid hit the plant earlier, even before anyone knew how contagious and deadly. One of their guest workers from Mexico was infected and passed away.
Jeff and his son Jon share an office above the processing floor of their Delcambre plant. Photo: Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News
“We strickly follow all FDA guidelines for Covid,” he said. “Hand sanitizers are everywhere, and everyone is required to wear masks. We are allowing as few visitors into the plant as possible. All are employees was great about going and getting vaccinated.”
Covid hit the nations restaurants especially hard with a record number of closing the first year. “When restaurant orders declined a lot of our customers have switched to retail packaging aimed at supermarket consumers,” said Jeff.
Jeff went on to explain that for the past two years the plant has processed shimp for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Emergency Food Assistance Program that provides supplements the diets of low-income needy persons, including elderly people, by providing emergency food and nutrition assistance through local food banks and other sources.
“We processed almost all of the shrimp going to the food banks through a contract Ocean received from the USDA. The first year was a big success. WE processed and packed the shrimp to the bid’s specifications. We are going on a second year, with a new bid coming up in the spring.”
He says this contract helped fishermen directly “because the price we were paying the boats were higher than usual.”
Old Problems
Over recent years, Jeff says the quality of shrimp he is receiving off the boat has improved greatly. A lot of that improvement is due to demands restaurants and supermarket chains are placing on their suppliers.
“Shrimpers are doing a better job because they see that people understand what they are eating,” he said. “ Granted there is always room for improvement. What we see now coming through the plant is a higher quality, with less rejection compared to years past.”
“Shrimpers are doing a better job because they see that people understand what they are eating,” said Jeff Floyd. Photo: Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News
Jon attributes the increased quality coming from the improvements on the boats, such the use of freezers instead of ice. “Freezers make it easier for fishermen to handle shrimp, and eliminates hotspots often found on ice boats.”
Both Floyd’s say it s harder to make it in the seafood industry with all the imports flooding the market. They keep shrimp prices depressed so fishermen, docks and processers have little room for profit.
“I keep thinking the government will get involved,” said the senior Floyd during a conversation with members of the Louisiana Fishing Community Recovery Coalition. “It’s not a level playing field. If we’d go sell our shrimp it for a dollar, they’d sell it for 90-cents. They don’t care if they are losing money; their governments are subsidizing them. Their governments have to give them something to do.”
He says every shrimp season is different and there are always shortfalls on different sizes of shrimp. He believes imports should be regulated on theses shortfall. “They should let imports fill the size shortfalls, this way the price of shrimp would remain at a level where fishermen could make a living. In addition, when consumers went to the store they would see a constant pricing for shrimp, not big jumps or drastic increases.”
The Floyds have been a leader in modernized automation for shrimp processing, from grading to quick freezing. Photo: Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News
He is glad to see the coalition speaking as one voice for the Louisiana seafood industry. “It is time to have one voice to go to Washington, instead of many asking for the same thing over and over.”
Floyd believes the whole seafood community needs to become a more organized, “It’s time to stop point fingers and placing blame. We need to get behind the coalition.”
Jim Gossen, of the Gulf Seafood Foundation and a member of the Louisiana Fishing Community Recovery Coalition, says “That’s why we have formulated a comprehensive
“White Paper” so we don’t confuse our representatives on what is needed to recover from four hurricanes over two years.”
The Floyds have been a leader in modernized automation for shrimp processing, from grading to quick freezing. Upgraded equipment is installed when it becomes available. “The only thing we really have left to automate is on the packing end, there are some out there we are looking at. The cost for robotics continues to come down and the reliability go up.”
His son explains that, “Machines don’t get tired, they don’t eat and they don’t leave after an hour. We have been able to reduce our labor force by about 10 people a shift.”
For years the lifeline for seafood processors has been the H2B Guest Worker Program, which brings migrant labors to do seasonal, work in the plants. It is one of the biggest issues facing his business. Before Covid H2B workers at the plant. Photo: Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News
Reducing labor is important in the seafood packing industry, be it shrimp, crab, crawfish or oyster. Thousands of job in the industry remain unfilled because of lack of labor willing to do what is often very repetitive tasks.
“You can’t keep people in here,” Jon said. “It seems there are different people in here every day. Some often stay less than an hour. Labor is a fight. We pay a fair wage, but even if we paid a $100 an hour it comes down to people don’t want to work on a weekend. The boats start coming in on a Thursday so the busiest time for us is Friday, Saturday and Sunday, By Monday we are starting to catch up a little. Its sad, but people just don’t want to work.”
Hiring is hard. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, employers are seeing a surge of job seekers who accept positions—and are neither seen nor heard from again, a practice called ghosting. “The incidence of so-called ghosting—of accepting offers and then saying that they’ll start and not showing up—is at a record high.” Jonas Prising, chairman and CEO of staffing agency ManpowerGroup told the Journal.
For years the lifeline for seafood processors has been the H2B Guest Worker Program, which brings migrant labors to do seasonal, work in the plants. It is one of the biggest issues facing his business.
“This year we received around 60 H2B labors,” said the elder Floyd. “That’s not near the number to keep our plant running. Our problem lies in we can’t apply till the first of January for our workers, by the time our application hits the right desk, those positions are already filled. They only way we have gotten our full quota was in prior years when the process was amended and H2B workers were allowed to return through the Returning Worker Program.”
Without a steady labor pool, oyster, crab, crawfish and shrimp plants will find it difficult to say in business. “You wonder if this industry is going to die,” Jeff Floyd said. Before Covid H2B workers at the plant. Photo: Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News
Without a steady labor pool, oyster, crab, crawfish and shrimp plants will find it difficult to say in business. “You wonder if this industry is going to die,” he said.
His son says, “They keep squeezing us down. Granted somebody will be left to do it. There is going to be more consolidation or loss of processing plants. There might not be a hundred plants processing seafood in future, but there will always be shrimp, and we plan to be the last one standing processing if it comes to that.”
Gulf Crown just wants a level playing field for the industry. He would like to see his H2B worker visas revised to reflect the H1A workers farmers receive every year. “We used to get the same people every year. They would get off the buses, come into the plant, put their boots on and get right to work. You didn’t need to tell them what to do.”
He says give us a level playing field and we will take care of the rest. “Just get us the labor we need to operate and a price where we can make a living.”
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