Shrimp Harvest
By JANIS D. FROELICH jfroelich@tampatrib.com
Published: Aug 19, 2002
  
TAMPA - There's a get-your-dander-up story in the Donini family, so irksome that when Ernie Donini repeats it on a recent morning before his father, also named Ernie, and his uncle John, the older men shake their heads in disgust. Ernie Donini, 39, took his wife, Kathi, and two children, Daulton, 6, and Alexa Rae, 12, to a Japanese steak house.

Folks around them were raving about the shrimp. "Actually, they were eating pond-raised shrimp,'' said Donini. "I didn't say anything. My kids wanted to eat there and see the chefs perform so I kept quiet.'' But did he eat the shrimp? No way.

"Pond-raised better than sea shrimp?'' asked his father, Ernie Donini, 74. "They're crazy - they just don't know,'' he said of the diners.
The Doninis have been in the shrimp business since the 1950s. Imported shrimp, including the black tiger and white variety from Southeast Asia, is a sore subject in this family. And it's not just a matter of taste.

Their business, Superior Seafoods, is suffering, they say, because imported shrimp, fed grain in ponds in countries such as Indonesia, China, Vietnam and Thailand, is flooding the market.

Like Their Business The Doninis are proud of their heritage, linked to plump, pink shrimp caught in surrounding offshore waters. Superior Seafoods, in the Tampa Shrimp Docks compound at 2625 Causeway Blvd., just south of Palmetto Beach, has been here since 1980 with a handful of shrimp businesses.

The Doninis previously were in another Port of Tampa spot at Hooker's Point. "When [George] Steinbrenner bought a shipyard, we had to look for another place,'' recalled the younger Donini, sitting at his office desk.

But the shrimpers were persistent, believing the Tampa Bay area benefits greatly from the fleet of shrimp trawlers. At one time Superior did it all - catch, pack and ship. There was a fleet of 24 boats in South America; shrimp was sold under the Superior label. But about the time the Doninis moved to their new location, they pared their business to shrimping only in the Gulf of Mexico.
Their fleet now numbers three shrimp trawlers - named after the younger Donini's children and wife. Superior packages and sells shrimp from other boats under independent contractor arrangements.

The Doninis stay away from Texas, where most Tampa Bay shrimp operations move in the slow summertime. "The prices are dropping on shrimp so much right now, it's difficult to make ends meet,'' said the younger Donini.

Even with imports hurting the market for sea-caught shrimp, the Doninis have no inclination to abandon ship. "This business is cyclical,'' said the younger Donini. "You have three to four decent years then a few sub-par years.'' He wasn't sure his children would inherit the business. "With all the problems from fuel costs to regulations, I just don't know,'' said Donini.

Environmentalists have criticized shrimpers for not using larger devices that free sea turtles getting tangled in shrimp nets. If the endangered creatures aren't freed from the nets, they drown. A federal law was passed in 1990, but some turtles have grown too big for the required cages. So new rules are in the works for new cages, which would cost more money.

The Florida Picture

Joe O'Hop of the Florida Marine Research Institute in St. Petersburg said the Florida shrimp catch is influenced heavily by conditions in Florida Bay, north of the Keys, where most shrimp is caught. "The pink shrimp go crazy in the seagrass beds,'' he said. "So if they're having a seagrass problem down there - like when the seagrass died off in 1989 - it's reflected in the numbers of shrimp caught for the state.'' Locally, in 1997, more than 3.4 million pounds of pink shrimp came into the three- county Tampa Bay area of Hillsborough, Manatee and Pinellas.

In 1998, the number was a high 4.7 million pounds followed by averages of about 2.5 million pounds from 1999 to 2001. O'Hop said statistics from the Florida shrimp industry don't reflect the total volume caught. "The shrimp caught offshore could go back to Alabama, Louisiana, Texas,'' he said.

Steve Cox, the Area 8 director of the Southeastern Fisheries, a nonprofit group involved in preserving the local fishing industry, said the shrimp catch from the Gulf of Mexico has remained steady the past 10 years. "The peaks and valleys thing comes in when you figure the average dollar value,'' Cox said. "But it's been a long time since there's been a lot more local shrimp brought to our docks that couldn't be sold.''

Cox, whose family operates a Tampa wholesale seafood company and a retail shop, agrees the imported pond- raised shrimp hurt local shrimpers. "Countries such as Thailand give retailers here money to promote their product. So how can you compete with a country?'' he asked.

The imports - about $1 to $1.50 less per pound than locally caught shrimp - taste different than the "wild shrimp'' from the Gulf of Mexico. The younger Donini says present prices, depending on size, range from $3 to $4 per pound for imported shrimp and $4 to $6 per pound for domestic.

Bill Antozzi, trade specialist at the St. Petersburg regional office for the National Marine Fisheries Service, says imported shrimp account for 87 percent of what U.S. consumers eat annually. This is up from 10 years ago, when 76 percent of shrimp was imported, and 20 years ago, when 54 percent was imported.

Consider The Taste "Pond-raised is bland. The wild kind is better flavored,'' Cox said. "But I guess with cocktail sauce and bread crumbs, people aren't discerning the difference. They just see the lower cost at their supermarkets.''

Superior sells about 90 percent of its shrimp to grocery stores, and offers some for retail. Five-pound boxes of 16/20 count per pound shrimp are available at its dockside company for $43. Medium size, 31/35 count, which Donini can't keep in stock, cost $35 for a five-pound box. "People come from all over to buy a box,'' Donini said. "We do have people who enjoy the pink shrimp.''