About a week ago I was in one of the local stores and as I usually do I went back to see what they had their shrimped priced at. For their 18-22 shrimp per pound, they had it marked down to $5.00 a pound. I literally shook my head as in to clear my head hoping that my eyes were just seeing it wrong, but no: that was right, it said $5.00 a pound. The cocktail shrimp, you know the little pink cooked guys that are just piled up in the front of the case? They were at $2.00 a pound. Since then I have been making an attempt to every time I drive by a store I will purposely stop and go inside to see what their shrimp prices are. The highest I have seen them was a store that had previously frozen U.S. wild caught shrimp marked down to $9.00 a pound from $14.00 a pound.
Now, I guess to most people they would just say what an incredible deal. Well, you are right: it is an incredible deal. While you are looking at that case at shrimp for $5.00 a pound, here is what I want you to think about.
1) First the shrimp were farm raised more than likely in Thailand, Vietnam or another Asian country.
2) Just like here in the U.S., they have a growing season so we don't know exactly when the shrimp were harvested.
3) Once they were harvested they were immediately frozen.
4) Once they were frozen, they were kept in a freezer until a freighter was ready to come to the U.S. that they could be put on.
5) They were eventually put on a freighter. Now, we don't know how long they were in a freezer before they were put on the ship.
6) They made their way across the Pacific. They made it to which ever port they were going to. They were off loaded, still in their container and had to wait for customs to get around to them. Still frozen. Remember that customs has to check out everything that comes off every ship coming into the U.S.
7) Assuming that the entire shipment of shrimp is cleared to go through, they are then sent to a central ware house where they are off loaded. And they sit, still frozen.
8) At that point, major retailers or restaurants or whomever send their trucks to those warehouses and take them to their own warehouses where they sit in a frozen state until they are sent to a more local warehouse or their place of operation to be packaged.
9) If it is for a store chain, they will then be sent to a local warehouse where the local stores can order what they need.
10) By the time the shrimp hit the store, we do know that it is at least a 3-4 month process at a minimum.
11) By this time of the year they are basically dumping everything they have in stock. It's been in their freezers way to long.
12) Ask yourself if that $5.00 a pound shrimp is worth it.
I know personally if I went shopping for a rib eye for dinner (my favorite cut of beef of all time), and I saw semi-frozen cuts of rib-eye just flopped on top of each other sitting on ice, and there was a sale price of $3.00 a pound, there is no way in you know what I would touch it.
So remember that just because something is only $5.00 a pound when it is normally $18.00 a pound, it doesn't mean that it always a great deal.
Right now there has been a problem in both Thailand and Vietnam where they aren't able to produce any shrimp at all. Ok, it's only effecting about 90% of their farming. Their farming ponds have been dry since around January. They would normally be full with shrimp in them. Watch to see where your shrimp are coming from in the next couple of months. If they are still showing Thailand and Vietnam, ask your store how long ago they were harvested. It will be interesting to know.
With all of your seafood, know where it is coming from. Try to buy seafood that is from sustainable sources if possible. It's not as hard as you think it is.
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