Ernie Anderson is the proprietor ofGraham Shrimp Co. Inc. in Bayou La Batre.

Name: Ernie Anderson

Name of Business: Graham Shrimp Co Inc.

Business Address: 13842 B Shell Belt Rd, Bayou La Batre, AL

Business Phone Number: 251-824-3536

Website: GrahamShrimpCo.com

Processes: Gulf Shrimp and Crab

Where were you born and raised?

Pace, Florida.

How did you come to live and work in Alabama’s seafood industry?

I moved to Mobile in 1986 to open a bail bond agency, which I still own and operate today. In 1991, my wife Terri and I purchased a small retail seafood business on Dauphin Island Parkway. I began to look for other opportunities in an industry that had sustained her family for over four generations.

What types of seafood do you process/handle?

We process Gulf shrimp and distribute crab, oysters and fish products with our own trucks in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida.

What makes your company/organization stand out within Alabama’s seafood industry?

We have built a company that has direct access to production directly across our dock. We have not only committed to processing a quality product, but we have the ability to bring that product and service directly to the end user.

What is something about Alabama’s seafood industry that everyone should know (but they probably don’t)?

Our state only accounts for about 15 % of the seafood sold in Alabama. So, if you don’t ask you for it, you probably are not getting it. If you don’t use it, you may lose it.

What is your favorite seafood dish to serve up for yourself and your family?

Mama Graham’s Chicken and Oyster Gumbo that continues to be made and served by the Graham family around the holidays.

What are your favorite hobbies?

Anything that involves my son and I. Traveling past any phone service into the Gulf and spending a day of uninterrupted fishing.

If you didn’t work in the Alabama seafood industry, what line of work would you pursue?

I am not bashful, I will do anything to feed my family. I didn’t get to become an NFL player like I wished for as a child, but no regrets. I have always been blessed with an opportunity to work (or created one of my own).

If you won a million dollars, what would you do with it?

Keep shrimping ‘til the money ran out.

What makes Alabama Gulf Seafood special?

God’s big pond and the fishermen that tend it.