Shortly after the National Shrimp Festival opened on Thursday, “Chief Shrimp Inspector” Chandra Wright brought a paper tray of boiled shrimp, corn and potatoes to a small tent near the event’s main entrance.

While there was no fanfare to draw the attention of passersby, this was the beginning of a new era for the annual Gulf Shores event. Erin Williams of SeaD Consulting selected a shrimp sample, bagged it, and logged it in a notebook.

Later, after more shrimp samples were collected from vendors set up around the festival, Williams and her father, David Williams, would carry them all to a room in a nearby condo, where they’d run a proprietary DNA rapid test that would tell whether they were Pacific white shrimp. If any tested positive, that would mean they hadn’t come from the Gulf and w

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