Economic Contribution of Mississippi Seafood Processing Industry

COMPONENTS OF SEAFOOD PROCESSING

Seafood processing primarily corresponds to "seafood canning" and "fresh and frozen seafood processing."
It involves plants engaged in the primary wholesale and processing of seafood products.

An online list of Mississippi seafood dealers can be viewed on the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources website. Species and levels of seafood trade groups categorize the listed seafood businesses.

An online directory of registered seafood businesses is available on the Mississippi MarketMaker website. An online list of seafood-related businesses is shown when you type "seafood" in the search box.

Recent natural and man-made disasters, economic recession, and the global pandemic adversely affected seafood processing production and plant gate values.
Several Mississippi seafood processing plants closed operations after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 (Fig. 1, 2, and 3).
Due to these disruptions, the number of oyster processing and crab plants has been below the required minimum to maintain data privacy since 2011 (Fig. 3).
As a result, the quantity and plant gate values and the number of employees in oyster and crab processing have not been available since 2011.
Request for Mississippi seafood processing data to NOAA Fisheries resulted in annual processing plant gate values from 2015 to 2022 (Fig. 4 and 5).

The total economic impact is the sum of direct, indirect, and induced impacts.
Direct impacts express the economic impacts in the sector where the expenditure was initially made.
Indirect impacts result from changes in the economic activity of other industrial sectors that supply goods or services to the sector being evaluated.
Induced impacts are the result of industry employees' personal consumption expenditures.

Four economic impacts are output or sales, jobs, income, and value-added. These impacts are not additive. Each type represents a specific economic activity reported.
Income, value-added, and output impacts are expressed in dollars for the year specified by the user.
Output or sales are the gross sales by businesses within the economic region affected by an activity.
Labor income includes personal income such as wages and salaries and proprietors' income or income from self-employment.
Employment impacts are expressed in terms of a mix of both full-time and part-time jobs.
Value-added contribution measures an industry's contribution to the gross domestic product. It is the difference between an Industry's total output and the costs of its intermediate inputs.
Labor income consists of all forms of employment income, including employee compensation -- wages, salaries, and benefit and proprietor income.

Fig. 6 shows the annual estimates of the economic impacts of Mississippi seafood processing.
In 2022, Mississippi seafood processing produced $108.2 million in total sales impacts, contributing 0.62% of the U.S. seafood processing industry.
About 1,451 jobs were created in Mississippi by seafood processing, adding 1.14% to the U.S. seafood processing industry.
Seafood processing generated income reaching $43 million. The value added by seafood processing was $54 million.

Annual data from Lightcast (2024) indicate about 1,980 Mississippi seafood processing owners and workers.
About 48% are males.
71.9% are African Americans, 17.7% are White, 5.7% are Hispanic, 4.2% are Asians, and 0.5% have two or more races. The rest are American Indians and Native Hawaiians.
The average age of Mississippi seafood processing owners and workers was 42.5. About 34.1% were less than 34, 42.3% were between 35 and 54. The 55-year-old and higher owners and workers comprised 23.6%.

The Mississippi seafood processing produced $108.2 million in total sales impacts, contributing 0.62% of the U.S. seafood processing industry.
The seafood processing industry created 1,451 jobs in Mississippi, adding 1.14% to the U.S. seafood processing industry.
Natural, technological, and man-made disasters severely impacted the Mississippi seafood processing industry in 2005, 2010, 2011, and 2019.

Posadas, Benedict C. 2024. Economic Contributions of Mississippi Seafood Processing. Mississippi MarkeMaker Newsletter, Vol. 14, No. 9. Mississippi State University Extension and Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Publication number MASGP-24-057-09. September 18, 2024. https://extension.msstate.edu/newsletters/mississippi-marketmaker/2024/vol-14-no-9-economic-contributions-mississippi-seafood