Catfish or Catfishing at Local Catfish Festivals?

DISCLAIMER: SeaD Consulting, LLC, is a private, third-party testing company that conducts genetic testing on shrimp and other seafood dishes served at restaurants to determine whether the restaurants are serving authentic locally-caught, wild seafood. SeaD collects the dishes tested, conducts the testing in-house, and then reports its findings. The information gathered by SeaD is preliminary or provisional and is subject to revision. However, the information is being provided to meet the need for timely best science. The information is provided on the condition that neither SeaD or its employees and representatives shall be held liable for any damages resulting from the unauthorized use of the information. SeaD’s genetic RIGHTTest’s™ assay and workflow has been peer-reviewed. However, the individual restaurant sampling tests are not peer-reviewed. SeaD’s current initial testing protocols are not intended to be comprehensive, but instead they are intended to provide a snapshot of inauthenticity rates for restaurants and entities portraying that local or wild-caught shrimp is being served to their customers. While SeaD’s review of each selected restaurant’s advertising materials, proximity of restaurants tested to local fishing docks, and decor choices is based on an initial fixed set of criteria for compiling this data, the conclusions reached from evaluating this data can be subjective, and differing conclusions can be reached. SeaD also is not an investigatory agency, and therefore SeaD has no personal or direct knowledge of what sources each restaurant actually uses for their shrimp, nor does SeaD know if other dishes served at the same restaurant might contain shrimp that are, in fact, locally-sourced or wild-caught. Unless otherwise stated, all data, reports, and related materials provided by SeaD are considered to satisfy the quality standards relative to the purpose for which the data was collected. Although the data and report setting forth the data have been reviewed for accuracy and completeness and have been approved for release by SeaD, no warranty, express or implied, is made by SeaD regarding the utility of the data for other purposes, nor shall the public distribution of SeaD’s report or data constitute a warranty of any nature of the report or data. SeaD’s testing and reporting is intended to be used as an investigatory tool to assist the restaurant industry’s fight against seafood mislabeling, and is not intended for use in any legal proceedings, nor may SeaD’s data, testing, or reporting be used in any legal proceeding without the express written authorization of SeaD.