Biloxi used to be the ‘Seafood Capital of the World.’ Which city holds the title now — and why?
More than a century ago, Biloxi’s harbors teemed with fishermen and seafood factories in town ran around the clock, earning the Gulf Coast town the reputation as the “Seafood Capital of the World.”
But Biloxi’s dominance faded over the decades, and another Southern town rose as a seafood hotspot — eventually claiming the title and holding it to this day. The community was recently highlighted in Southern Living and Travel + Leisure for its thriving seafood scene.
So, what caused seafood production in Biloxi to slow down? And which town took over as the new “Seafood Capital of the World”? Here’s what we know.
What happened in Biloxi?
At the height of Biloxi’s seafood industry, in 1902, the town recorded annual seafood processing numbers of nearly 6,000,000 pounds of oysters and 4,500,000 pounds of shrimp, the Sun Herald reported.
“In the 1800s, Biloxi was just a sleepy little fishing village,” Elizabeth Alexander, Mississippi Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum education and outreach coordinator, told Today In Mississippi. “By 1900, the people realized that the Biloxi area had enough seafood to share with the world.”
But the Great Depression, both World Wars and natural disasters thwarted the seafood industry’s growth, slowing it down.
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Biloxi’s once buzzing oyster industry was decimated because of natural disasters.
Despite the industry’s hardships, the Mississippi Gulf Coast remains a major seafood destination, just at a different scale than it once was.
Where is the new ‘Seafood Capital of the World’?
Calabash, a small fishing village in North Carolina, currently holds the title of “Seafood Capital of the World,” Southern Living and Travel + Leisure reported.
The town earned its reputation about four to five decades after Biloxi, during the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, according to Hobbs Realty, a North Carolina-based real estate company.
It became known as the “Seafood Capital of the World” for two main reasons: first, the town has a wide variety of seafood restaurants. Second, for the way they fry their seafood, which is known as “Calabash-style,” according to Southern Living.
