This afternoon I talked by phone to Tanya Fabian, who handles matters in the Fabian Seafood home office in Galveston, Texas. The area of the Gulf directly affected by the BP spill is 350-400 miles east of the Texas coast. "That's a separate fishing area," Fabian explains; fishing in their area is still going on unaffected by the oil "but now Louisiana fishermen are coming over here to fish."
Fishing is governed by seasons, too, Fabian explains. "There are certain areas you can fish at certain times, and there is a limit here for this time of year," as the shrimp are breeding. All of this has put fishermen and women in competition "to catch as much as they can" as fast as they can, and demand creates higher prices. Fabian's prices have risen, but they are trying to hold them down: "You want your product to still be affordable."
Although the Texas seafood "continues to be wonderful, safe and good to eat," says Fabian, the mood in the Galveston area is not upbeat. "[The oil spill] is our topic of conversation every morning and throughout the day. About a year and a half ago we had a bad hurricane and a lot of the areas around here are still devastated. We're still recovering from that." Some businesses "deal for a while, but for a lot of them, it's too much."
Some people are "more panicky," says Fabian. Recently those fishing red snapper "panicked" and fished out their limit for the year out of fear that the oil would get to the snapper. Then snapper flooded the market and wholesalers couldn't get rid of all the supply.
Panic has also ensued on the consumer end, as some trucks (Fabian has multiple truck routes throughout the Midwest) have sold out early during multiple day stands (as happened recently in Milwaukee) or moved on to their next stops low on product. Madison's truck is in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, before it comes here, and should have "an ample supply," according to Fabian. But, she notes, "people are stocking up, buying 20 pounds where they might otherwise have bought 10." (You may wonder at the logic of buying fresh seafood off a truck only to freeze it to make sure you have some later, but people do what they do.)
The future largely depends on the hurricane season, Fabian admits. A hurricane could bring oil to the Texas coast too: "I would hate to see oil all over the beaches here. But we'll see what Mother Nature has in store."
