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Pride of The Pond in Tunica processes about 12 million pounds of catfish each year. Here, Johnny Hanes (from left), Carl O’Neal and George Douglas draw in a catch. It will sit for a couple of hours to let fish that aren’t ready for harvest swim out of the nets.

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After July 1, new laws in Mississippi, the largest catfish-producing state, and Tennessee will require restaurants to tell customers the source of their catfish.

Photo by Dave Darnell
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Whole catfish are moved along a processing line at Pride of the Pond in Tunica. These fish will be packaged whole and not filleted.

Catfish is as regional a product as barbecue or the blues, but diners now must ask themselves which delta their fish is coming from — the Mississippi or the Mekong.

That changes after July 1.

New laws in Tennessee and Mississippi will require restaurants to tell their customers where they get their catfish. (A similar law is already on the books in Arkansas.)

Grocery stores and meat markets already have to clearly label their catfish’s country of origin, thanks to a 2002 federal mandate. In the same year, Congress made it illegal to market other types of Southeast Asian fish as catfish.

The new state laws are intended to make catfish safer for consumers and to help level a playing field tilted unfairly against American catfish farmers, according to industry advocates.

They say foreign catfish, which primarily come from Asia, are not raised on farms but in small pens in rivers or reservoirs, where diseases spread easily. To fight contamination, foreign farmers use an array of antibiotics not approved for use in the U.S. However, the antibiotics go largely undetected; unlike domestic catfish, very little imported catfish is inspected by government agencies.

“The bill is a common-sense response to the risk to Tennesseans by the illegal drugs and chemicals like the cancer-causing substances found in catfish imported from Communist China and Vietnam,” Jeff McCord, an adviser to the Jackson, Miss.-based Catfish Institute, told a Tennessee Senate committee in April.

But the bill wasn’t “common sense” to Bill Haskell, a lobbyist for the Tennessee Hospitality Association.

“We always oppose any government mandate on what is on our menus,” Haskell told the same Senate committee in April. “Cracker Barrel is one of the largest servers of U.S. catfish and they told me to object to anybody requiring them to label the catfish.”

But for U.S. farmers, higher quality standards and scrutiny lead to higher input costs, which lead to higher wholesale or retail costs. Foreign competition has taken a measurable toll on catfish farming since it showed up in early 2001.

Catfish farm acreage has plummeted 41 percent since then, from 195,820 acres to 114,800, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Catfish acreage in Mississippi, by far the largest catfish-producing state, has dropped 43 percent since 2001, from 112,700 acres to 64,000.

But the contractions aren’t just about imported competition, said Chip Morgan, executive vice president of The Delta Council, an economic development organization that represents 18 counties in northwestern Mississippi. He said food safety news associated with imports rattled consumers already nervous about fresh fish.

“It scares people,” Morgan said. “We don’t know exactly what (caused the acreage contractions), but we do know the American consumer has been made aware of food safety issues associated with foreign imports.”

Sales volumes slumped to 16.5 million pounds in 2009, down from 21 million pounds sold in 2006, according to Catfish Institute figures. Wholesale prices fell, too, from $2.54 per pound in 2006 to $2.46.

Steve Prentiss, principal and CEO of Cajun Catfish Co. on Sycamore View, said the restaurant has only served U.S. farm-raised catfish since it opened five years ago.

“It just has a better flavor profile and it’s a meatier fish,” Prentiss said. “I can’t imagine why anyone would use imported catfish unless they had it on a buffet.”

He said the new law will be positive for restaurants and consumers, and he hopes it will raise awareness of the way imported catfish is inspected.

For Morgan, of the Delta Council, he hopes the distinction will help set the record straight on American catfish.

“We won’t be thrown in the same garbage can with fish that is not raised by the same standards,” Morgan said.

“We’re a young industry in catfish, not yet 40 years old. But we want to grow up and be just like beef and poultry.”

– Toby Sells: 529-2742

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