Open-air shrimp market a big success By JOHN DeSANTIS Senior Staff Writer
August 25, 2002
HOUMA -- Armed with ice chests and blessed with patience, hundreds queued up to buy fresh local shrimp at rock bottom prices Saturday, direct from the men and women who labored for the catch.
The open-air shrimp market alongside Cannata’s supermarket on Prospect Street at times resembled a depression-era soup line, with consumers waiting for more than two hours at one point for shrimpers to arrive, eager to buy at prices as low as $2.50 and $3 per pound.
The fisherman’s market was a first in modern times for Houma and for store owner Vincent Cannata Jr. who waived any profit in favor of helping struggling fishermen whose product fetches far less at local docks and processing houses, due to a tidal wave of low-priced overseas imports.
“We’re trying to help then out of this,” said Cannata, who was moved by Courier stories of shrimpers close to losing houses and cars during a slack season with no price. “Hopefully this won’t last forever, it will be a temporary period, but to ignore it at this time will be something we can never undo.”
An estimated $6,000 worth of shrimp – more than one ton – was sold between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Saturday, from a long counter made of folding tables set beneath the store’s parapet, where Cannata’s employees rang sales on a cash register -- including requisite taxes -- as shrimpers shoveled and stacked silvery mounds of Louisiana white shrimp into consumer’s coolers.
Glenda Duplantis, a retail sales clerk, arrived at the Cannata’s lot a little after 7:30 a.m., hoping to get a jump on bargain shrimp before heading for her own job. She sat on her blue and white cooler for more than an hour and a half before spotting Dulac shrimp fisherman Junior Parfait, who arrived with about 100 pounds of product.
“I was excited,” Duplantis said. “I could get my shrimp, go home and get ready for work.”
The shrimp were larger than what Duplantis had hoped for, so she bought only ten pounds.
“They were gorgeous, $3 a pound, the prettiest shrimp I had seen in years at a price like that,” Duplantis said.
Parfait’s 100 pounds disappeared in minutes, and the line of buyers grew. The wait for a shrimper to replace the depleted Parfait, for some, added to the sense of adventure. But the wait was long.
Cannata fretted over the initial low turnout, concerned that what he saw as a good deed could turn sour if potential customers clutching hand-written numbers to indicate places in line grew unsatisfied. Standing on a trailer loaded with huge gray ice bins -- donated by the P&P Shrimp Company in Montegut, the grocer said he was reminded of stories about his father’s early days at the New Orleans French Market, where fresh meats, fish and produce were often sold harvester to customer direct.
The taxman calleth
Kermit Sneeze, a retired medical assistant, was among those who said he did not mind waiting.
“If time was money I’d be a millionaire,” said Sneeze, who said the scene reminded him of food lines during World War II, when ration tickets were required.
Time was something the Terrebonne Parish tax office wasted not, after employees learned of Cannata’s plans, published in Friday’s Courier. Cannata said he assured officials that the law would be followed; although not aware of any requirements that he do so, the grocer had employees pressure wash and sanitize the area where sales were made before customers arrived, a process repeated at the close of business.
Saturday was marked by trial and error, for customers, the grocer and shrimpers. For Darlene Bergeron’s family, the problem was transporting shrimp from their Dulac boat to the store. After locating a suitable saltbox and a pickup to haul it in, shrimp had to be off-loaded in Dulac before the trip up Grand Caillou Road.
Long about noon, Kim Chauvin showed up in a white pickup with colorful ice chests full of shrimp -- about 700 pounds of it -- caught on her family’s boat, the Mariah Jade. A family friend met the big trawler at the mouth of Bayou Grand Caillou Saturday morning, taking on shrimp that were sorted into the chests according to size, for easier retailing.
“I read about this in the paper and truly thought it was the thing we had been praying for, some doors to be opened so that we could hand out some business cards and sell shrimp,” said Chauvin, who is convinced that direct retail is the future to success in trawling. The Chauvins have been able to pay their bills this year, but margin for error or bad fortune is slim. “The 700 pounds we sold today paid our house note, that’s what it did for us today.”
Retailer not happy
The demand for shrimp was so high that some fishermen were swamped by customers before they ever got a chance to talk with Cannata, or set up their place in line for selling.
“They never gave me a chance,” said Chad Trosclair of Dulac, as he weighed out shrimp from a parking lot space at $3 per pound for smiling customers. His ice chests were empty within 20 minutes.
Not everyone was happy with the arrangement, however.
Arthur Eschete of Sea-Go Seafood in Houma said he cut back on his shrimp purchases this weekend in anticipation of Cannata’s event. The laissez-faire market concept, Eschete said, was unfair competition for retailers like himself who pay even more wholesale for shrimp than fishermen were charging at the lot.
“This could be devastating to me and other seafood stores in town,” said Eschete. We saw this morning people with ice chests there. That will have a long term effect, people are going to get ice chests of shrimp and put them up in their freezers for the next six months and our business will be completely dead.”
Small independent docks that sell to large processors as well as small retailers like himself stand to lose, Eschete said.
Same time next week
Jeff Scott, manager of Gulf Island Shrimp in Dulac, is Cannata’s regular shrimp supplier, and said he was pleased that the grocer could make a difference in the lives of fishermen he is currently in no position to help.
“Vince has been selling our shrimp for years and he wanted to know if it would do any harm,” Scott said. Right now it might help the fishermen get a little boost and a little shot in the arm. We can’t pay fishermen more for the product because we can’t sell it for more. Letting them go direct to the consumer they can make a few extra cents with it. This product, Louisiana white shrimp, is very limited and in another week or so it will be gone.”
The scarcity of decent sized white shrimp, fishermen say, is frightening this year when coupled with low prices, which is why those who came to Cannata’s were so happy to be selling direct.
Cannata questioned Eschete’s reasoning, noting that he himself was losing meat sales to direct-sold shrimp, not to mention sales of shrimp already in his showcases that would not be purchased.
“We took our lumps too,” said Cannata, who plans to hold another fisherman’s market again Saturday at 9 a.m. at the east-side store. “We just want to help these guys out and it will all work out in the long run. People can’t spend money in our stores if they don’t have money in their pockets, and if they can’t sell shrimp at a price that can cover their expenses they’ve got no money to spend for anybody’s goods.”
Senior Staff Writer John DeSantis can be reached at (985) 850-1151 or john.desantis@houmatoday.com. |
