ATLANTA — Georgia lawmakers advanced a bill requiring restaurants to tell their customers where their seafood items come from.
House Bill 117 passed a full floor vote on Tuesday, nearly unanimously, and moved to the Georgia Senate for further consideration.
According to the legislative proposal, lawmakers want to have restaurants and other food service establishments identify where their products are imported from, in this case specifically shrimp.
A previous version of the bill also included oysters, clams, scallops, lobsters, crayfish and other “similar fresh or cooked edible products,” but did not include canned or salted seafood items.
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The proposal lists no other seafood types for its provisions, but would require that any imported shrimp have “conspicuous” labels when they do not come from the United States.
“All commercial food service establishments in this state that serve imported shrimp shall conspicuously display on their menus a disclosure by each menu item containing shrimp stating ‘FOREIGN IMPORTED,’ or display ‘FOREIGN IMPORTED SHRIMP’ on placards visible to the public,” the bill says.
The bill would also have restaurants display the countries of origin for shrimp sold for their menus.
Bill sponsor Rep. Jesse Petrea told Channel 2 Action News that the newer version of the bill passed by the house was a compromise with the industry, as well as a way to remove burdens on businesses as far as updating menus.
Rather than focus on all seafood, Petrea said shrimp remained in the bill on its own as it is the most commonly eaten seafood in Georgia.
Further compromise in the newer version of the bill was the change to simply note whether a product was imported or from a domestic source, as some types of seafood come from a large variety of locations and the goal was not to financially impact businesses by forcing constant reprintings based on their inventories’ sources.
Petrea said the main goal for the legislation was transparency for diners at Georgia restaurants.
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