Big Shrimp Problems

The New York Inquirer managed to obtain the following transcript of Sean Connery and friends ordering dinner at a Red Lobster in Glasgow, Scotland.

Waiter: Have you lads made up yerr minds about what you'll be havin' then?

Sean: Well, this is Red Lobshter is it not?

Waiter: 'tis.

Sean: And it is LangoustineFest is it not? We'll be having as much local langoustine as may fill our bellies. Now, you know I prefer all things Scottish, so our scampi is local isn't it?

Waiter: Ahhh, funny story about that…

Well, this story is not so much ha-ha funny as it is boo-hoo funny. Langoustines are a briny delicacy, similar to shrimp, favored by the Scots, the French, those Canadians who live in made-up places like New Brunswick, and New York Times food critics. 

Quaint little Scotland, land of shortbread and freedom fighters who don't whisper the word "mercy" upon pain of death, is in a row this week as the wee sea creatures have become the latest example of the wasteful consequences of globalization.

Young's Seafood Company is a 200-year-old outfit that harvests and processes langoustines on the west coast of Scotland for sale to the rest of the country — which is slightly smaller than Maine. This formerly-simple business model will become far more complicated, as the company announced plans this Wednesday to cut 120 employees, or half its domestic workforce, in favor of shipping the langoustines to Thailand. There, they will be hand-peeled by locals there before being shipped back to Scotland and sold as "Scottish Island" scampi.

This is a 12,000-mile round-trip voyage. Young's Scottish workers earn around $11 an hour while their Thai counterparts would earn around 50¢ an hour. Based on estimates provided by the environmental rights group Friends of the Earth-Scotland, shipping 600 tones of langoustines to Thailand each year (the company's average output) would produce about 300 extra tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year. A major British report on the economic effects of climate change released this year, authored by Sir Nicholas Stern, proposes the idea that each ton of CO₂ emissions has an overall social cost of around $85.

For its part, Young's, through spokespersons, states that they have a policy of not using ships that use heavy fuel oil and that their actions are, "for the long-term future of [their] employees and of the langoustine industry," and that, "[o]f course companies should take social and environmental factors into account; they've got a responsibility to the community." Of course!

Young's is not alone. In September, Scottish seafood company Dawnfresh took a similar action, outsourcing its Scottish prawn processing to China.

In light of a host of ancillary costs, upset locals and increased organizational complexity, cutting costs in one sector (payroll) may in this manner may seem incredibly wasteful — but then again, LangoustineFest at Red Lobster wouldn't be as cheap without them. --ARAM GUMUSYAN

(Originally published 11/17/06. Langoustines from Mr Weir's flickr.)

Comments

[virus classification]

Shrimp belong to the group of crustaceans within the seafood, a food that has a low level in fat and calories compared to beef and chicken, beef or pork.