Across the Gulf of Mexico, from the Florida panhandle west to the Louisiana bayou, shrimp boats still sit at the dock, unused. For those that rely on Gulf Seafood to make money–fishermen, wholesalers, distributors–the problem isn’t available local product. It’s demand that remains down, even though no oil from BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster has seeped into the Gulf for 2 months. Pure and simple, it’s a public perception issue that continues to plague the Gulf seafood industry.

“Our sales are down 52% from what they were at this point last year,” says Frank Patti, of Pensacola, Florida’s legendary Joe Patti Seafood, named after his father in 1930. For the first time in 80 years of doing business, the signs above the fish on ice at his wholesale business now say exactly where each shrimp, oyster, scallop and tuna was caught.

“People didn’t ask where it came from, but now, today, they do. Ever since the spill, they want to know where it came from,” says Patti.
Seafood caught in the Gulf of Mexico is perhaps the most thoroughly tested seafood in the world right now, according to retired Admiral Thad Allen, the federal government’s point man on the BP oil spill. He as well as federal scientists have repeatedly proclaimed gulf seafood safe, healthy and delicious. But there remains a national squeemishness among many fish eaters, thanks in large part to non-stop tv coverage of the oil spill for weeks on end.

When the customers don’t want Gulf of Mexico shrimp, for example, then the fishermen, wholesalers and distributors–who all want to make money–look elsewhere for product.

Even if a Mississippi shrimper went out today and brought back a huge haul of safe-to-eat shrimp, he can only sell it for $2.50 a pound, down from at least $4 a pound before the oil spill. For many, that’s not worth the cost to go net them.

Patti thinks the solution to getting the seafood industry back on normal footing is all about the nation’s memory.

“Memory is the worst thing right now. I think it’ll come back,” says Patti. “Will they do it this year? No. Hopefully next year it will.”