Baton Rouge -- Starting August 1, there will be stricter penalties for businesses caught mixing domestic and foreign seafood and selling it as locally sourced.

The law's author, State Representative Timothy Kerner (R-Lafitte), says that the law, signed by Governor Jeff Landry a week ago, will help out the Louisiana seafood industry.

"The fishermen will get a little more money for their product because it's a better product, and that's all we want," Kerner said.

The law will allow officials to test any product they believe could be fraudulent. If it's proven that the seafood is not local, it could result in fines.

"We put a $15,000 first offense, $25,000 second offense, and $50,000 third offense," Kerner said.

Kerner was asked how the law would be enforced.

"You have the Department of Agriculture that's actually in charge of enforcement. If somebody called or made a complaint that was happening, they'd probably go out and test them and see whether or not they are packed with some foreign imports in there," Kerner said.

Kerner's law will attempt to close a loophole that he says allowed comingled seafood to be sold as domestic.

Another reason Kerner believes the law is needed is several recent studies conducted on seafood in Louisiana. One of those was by an organization called SeaD Consulting.

"That company has been going around restaurants in Louisiana and testing the seafood."

SeaD recently wrapped up a study in April, testing shrimp dishes from seafood restaurants around the capital area.

"We test 44 restaurants, and then we get the results from those 44 restaurants," SeaD Consulting Co-Founder David Williams said.

The study used genetic testing to find out if shrimp from restaurants where customers expect American wild-caught shrimp were local or actually imported.

One of the 30 restaurants that the study confirmed served authentic American wild-caught shrimp was Drusilla Seafood Restaurant in Baton Rouge.

"On top of helping the local fisherman and contributing back to Louisiana, that product is actually a better product from Louisiana," Drusilla Seafood Co-Owner Brad Zito said.

The 30 restaurants that were confirmed to be serving authentic American Wild-Caught shrimp can be found here.

Williams added that just because a restaurant is not on the list of authentic American wild-caught shrimp, it does not mean that it does not have it.

"If there is a place that's being authentic, that isn't on our list, I strongly suggest the restaurants go out of their way to promote the fact that they're authentic," Williams said.

The study showed though, that 14 of the 44 dishes from other establishments were determined to have imported or farm-raised shrimp.

"We don't have any problem with a restaurant serving imported shrimp, as long as they say they're serving imported shrimp," Williams said.

SeaD says that most of those 14 restaurants either didn't have signage saying where the shrimp came from or misrepresented where the shrimp was from.

"We have found that basically there's over a $2 difference per plate if you say that you're serving imported shrimp than if you're saying you're serving local shrimp. We have done the calculations; this type of misrepresentation costs Louisiana about $225,000 a day," Williams said.

SeaD did not specify what those 14 restaurants were.