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Committee backs substitute to House Bill 117 requiring restaurants to disclose imported seafood; amendment adds beef and chicken
Summary
The Interstate Cooperation committee gave a unanimous ‘do pass’ recommendation to a committee substitute to House Bill 117, which would require commercial food-service establishments to conspicuously disclose when menu items contain imported shrimp; an amendment added beef and chicken and revised menu/placard language.
The committee approved a substitute to House Bill 117 by unanimous voice vote after amendments that broadened the disclosure requirement.
Under the committee substitute as amended, commercial food-service establishments that serve specified protein items must conspicuously disclose on menus or on placards visible to the public when the item contains foreign-imported product. The substitute narrows label content to a binary disclosure — whether a product is imported — rather than listing country of origin, the bill’s author said.
“I will tell you…94% of the shrimp consumed in this country is imported,” the bill’s author said, arguing the measure is intended to provide transparency so consumers can decide what to feed their families. The author also said FDA inspects about “0.7%” of imported shrimp and cited recent shipments refused for antibiotic residues.
Senator James moved a motion of “do pass” for the committee substitute; Senator Watson seconded. Senator Dixon offered a recorded amendment to add “beef, chicken, or shrimp” to the disclosure requirement and to change the draft’s “or” to “and” in the placard/menu sentence; the amendment was seconded and was adopted. The committee then approved the substitute as amended by unanimous voice vote; the chair announced the committee’s action as “a unanimous” vote.
Committee discussion touched on consumer allergies, domestic wild-caught versus farmed seafood, enforcement scope for state institutions, and the author’s intent to minimize regulatory burden on restaurants. Senator Macklin asked whether labeling could indicate wild versus farmed; the author said domestic shrimp are “overwhelmingly wild caught” but expressed concern that additional caveats might increase burdens on restaurants and undercut negotiated language with the Restaurant Association.
The author said the bill grew from an initial effort to require country-of-origin labeling in food service to a narrower requirement limited to indicating imported shrimp, then broadened in committee to include beef and chicken per the adopted amendment. The committee recorded the substitute to House Bill 117 as passed out of the Interstate Cooperation committee with the adopted amendments.
