PANAMA CITY — Over the next three years, the state’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services plans to spend $20 million to enhance capabilities of its laboratories to inspect seafood and increase public confidence in seafood caught in the Gulf of Mexico.
That seems to be good news for some local business owners who believe increased efforts to spread the word about the safety of seafood caught in the Gulf of Mexico will benefit the local industry.
The state department reported laboratory testing shows seafood from Florida is “safe and plentiful and have not been affected by the oil spill.”
The Department’s Division of Food Safety has screened more than 200 seafood samples, including finfish, shrimp, crab, lobster and oysters, and less than 11 percent had traces of possible oil contaminants. Of those that tested positive, the traces were “less than 1/1,000th of the FDA’s levels of concern.”
To read the rest of the story, please go to: News Herald (Panama City, FL).
