We Americans may enjoy our tuna and savor our salmon, but nothing makes us weak in the knees like an overloaded buffet of all-you-can-eat shrimp.
Whether it’s battered and fried, steamed and cocktail-sauced, or boiled until tender in spicy brine, shrimp is a national obsession. Our consumption has been escalating, up to about 4.4 pounds per person per year, a marked increase from 4 pounds per person just five years ago. It seems we will eat as much shrimp as we can get our hands on — over 1.5 billion pounds per year.
Lower prices and increased supply have whetted our appetites. According to John Sackton, the founder of the online industry publication Seafood News, 49 percent of American families put shrimp in their shopping carts in 2018, a record high.
“Because shrimp prices have been consistently low and stable,” Mr. Sackton said, “it’s allowed supermarkets and restaurants to do promotions, which spurs consumption even higher.”
No longer the kind of delicacy flaunted at weddings next to the caviar, shrimp is now seen as a value ingredient, something to pluck out of the freezer and toss into your waiting pan of buttery garlic whenever you need a speedy, convenient dinner.
Amid this boom in shrimp consumption, however, there are questions hanging over the industry. Is our shrimp habit environmentally sustainable? Have shrimp farming methods changed since past reports of slave labor practices (particularly in Thailand), disease outbreaks, the widespread use of antibiotics, liquid-waste pollution and the destruction of mangroves? Is the fishing of wild shrimp devastating the turtle population? And why exactly do some shrimp sell for $5.97 a pound while others cost three times as much?
Still, Americans are likely going to continue to cook and eat shrimp. So perhaps the most important question for consumers is this: When the craving for a bowl of garlicky scampi hits, which are the best shrimp to buy, both in terms of sustainability and flavor?
To find out, I took a close look at America’s favorite seafood, which falls into two broad categories: wild-caught shrimp and farmed shrimp.
Wild Shrimp
If you don’t live near a coast and aren’t dedicated to the search, the chance of coming across fresh — never frozen — wild-caught shrimp is pretty slim. This is rare, seasonal seafood that you’ll need to seek out. The rewards, however, are tremendous.
My first taste of fresh shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico happened recently in Galveston, Texas, with Buddy Guindon, a fisherman for over 40 years. Along with his two sons, Mr. Guindon owns a small fleet of fishing boats; a retail store, Katie’s Seafood Market; and a restaurant, Katie’s Seafood House, right on the pier where his boats unload their slippery catch. When I visited, this included sacks of wriggling pale shrimp that, within the hour, became our lunch.
We ate them boiled, tearing off the heads and shells before devouring the sweet, juicy meat. With a plump, firm texture and saline flavor that was closer to lobster than the shrimp I was used to, I dipped tail after tail in melted butter, the spicy shrimp broth running between my fingers. I’d never eaten so many shrimp in one sitting, probably because I’d never eaten shrimp that tasted so good.
Although once upon a time the United States coastline was thick with wild shrimp in many parts of the country, including California, Maine, Oregon and Washington, environmental factors and overfishing have left fisheries extremely diminished. (There are a few exceptions, such as the wild Alaskan spot prawns that are currently having a moment with West Coast chefs.) These days, nearly all of the wild-caught shrimp on the market here, both fresh and frozen, is from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean off the Carolinas and Georgia.
Yet, domestic, wild-caught shrimp accounts for less than 10 percent of all the shrimp we eat in this country. That number is not likely to increase, because even as our hunger for shrimp grows, the number of wild shrimp in the ocean is finite — and fragile.
Not that the shrimp themselves are fragile. As Paul Greenberg, the author of “Four Fish,” “American Catch” and, most recently, “The Omega Principle,” told me, “Shrimp breed like crazy and grow like bugs wherever there’s wetlands.”
Instead, it’s their habitat that’s precarious. “Shrimp is a huge paradox because, by nature of its biology, it should be sustainable,” Mr. Greenberg said.
But the degradation of their environment — from changes in climate, algae bloom from fertilizer runoff, the corroding of coastal marshland from oil spills and hurricanes, and the changes in salinity of coastal waters from flooding — is taking its toll.
Another issue with wild-shrimp fishing is bycatch, which can range anywhere from two to 10 pounds for every pound of shrimp caught. Over the past few years, bycatch rates in the United States have been going down, the result of a concerted industry effort, along with expanded legislation requiring shrimp nets to be outfitted with devices like turtle excluders. But still, bycatch is one reason that Seafood Watch from the Monterey Bay Aquarium rates most wild Gulf shrimp fisheries as only a yellow “good alternative,” and not a green “best choice.”
“Every species in the Gulf gets caught in a shrimp net at some point,” Mr. Guindon told me in Galveston. “I’ve been working with chefs trying to get them to take the underutilized species. Croakers are the most abundant fish in the Gulf, and there’s no market for them, but they have good flavor. Every shrimper I know catches at least 2,000 pounds of croakers for 500 pounds of shrimp. Mostly we throw it all back.”
When it comes to buying wild shrimp, lucky residents living near the Gulf and Atlantic coast in the South might find fresh ones in local supermarkets and fish shops. Some large chains, like Wegmans and some regional Whole Foods Markets, as well as upscale markets like Eataly and the Lobster Place in New York, also carry them, albeit at a premium price of $14.99 to $18.99 per pound.
But most wild shrimp is frozen and shipped around the country, where you’ll find it either in bags in supermarket freezers, or thawed and piled on ice. The quality varies hugely depending upon how the shrimp is processed after catching.
At the low end of the spectrum are wild shrimp that have been treated with chemical additives (sodium bisulfite and tripolyphosphate). These shrimp have typically been frozen and refrozen several times over, which can make them mushy and bland. If you see bags of wild shrimp at bargain prices in big-box stores, this is probably what you’re getting.
[Read more about chemical additives and shrimp.]
Far better-quality wild shrimp have been frozen without chemicals, either onshore soon after harvesting, or on plate freezers while still on the boat. Retrofitting a shrimp boat with plate freezers is an expensive investment, but can yield shrimp with excellent flavor and texture that’s well worth the extra cost to consumers.
You can find this shrimp at upscale supermarkets and fish shops; ask for chemical-free wild shrimp. If the fishmonger doesn’t know if the shrimp in stock has been treated with chemicals, you might want to find another store.
This higher-quality shrimp is the product some fisheries hope will set them apart from the farmed shrimp imported from Asia and South America.
“We can’t supply all the shrimp to the world,” said Jim Gossen, president of the Gulf Seafood Foundation, “but a higher-quality product gets more money. There are always people willing to pay for the best stuff, whether it’s Wagyu beef or our own Gulf shrimp.”
Lance Nacio, the owner of Anna Marie Shrimp in Montegut, La., was the first Gulf fisherman to install plate freezers on his boat, a technology that had formerly been used on large commercial fishing boats in Alaska and Canada. This enables him to sell high-quality shrimp directly to customers without having to pay a processor to freeze the shrimp for him, which puts extra money in his pockets.
He’s also been working with chefs in New Orleans and Baton Rouge to create markets for his bycatch.
“Here on the Gulf Coast, people realize they can’t compete with the flood of cheap Asian shrimp,” he said, “so we’re focusing on quality, sustainability and diversifying. Always thinking outside the box is the way shrimpers have to be.”
Farmed Shrimp
Most experts agree that without aquaculture, there wouldn’t be enough seafood to go around 10 years from now. The ocean is already under too much pressure to be the sole resource, the result of decades of overfishing and environmental factors that are having a negative impact on many seafood populations.
But shrimp aquaculture in particular has a very grim reputation, rife with accounts of slave laborers harvesting disease-ridden crustaceans from antibiotic-filled swamps amid the dead mangroves. (Still want that scampi?)
Because of the consistent demand for inexpensive shrimp, most of which is raised in countries without much government oversight or intervention into the industry, all of these issues are still very much a reality for the majority of farmed shrimp on the market, despite the international outcry for change.
“It’s a whack-a-mole situation with any kind of bad behavior,” Mr. Greenberg said. “When they resolve issues in one country, it pops up somewhere else. As long as people want cheap shrimp, there’s always going to be a market for poorly raised animals.”
Currently, nearly all the farmed shrimp on the market comes from Southeast Asia (particularly Vietnam), India and South America. Farms in those places vary from well-run facilities that operate with transparency, have fair labor practices, don’t misuse antibiotics, don’t overcrowd their ponds, and are environmentally sustainable, to murky operations without any transparency.
As for domestic farmed shrimp, the industry is tiny, accounting for less than 1 percent of the shrimp we buy. Labor and other operating costs have made it hard for shrimp farms in the United States to compete with overseas products.
But with new technology, this may be changing. Businesses like the Tru Shrimp Company in Balaton, Minn., are working on improving land-based water recirculating systems to raise shrimp more sustainably in tanks, without using antibiotics, and without the carbon footprint of shipping frozen, perishable shrimp from Asia and South America.
For the foreseeable future, though, farmed shrimp from abroad will continue to dominate the market. But as more consumers demand shrimp that is sustainable and more ethically raised, the number of overseas farms with good practices will most likely increase.
“When the U.S. market talks, the supply chain listens,” said Jennifer Dianto Kemmerly, vice president of global initiatives at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. “So we rely on the market to send a clear signal that we will buy the seafood that is the most sustainable.”
Because shrimp farms tend to be small and family run, particularly in Southeast Asia, it’s impossible for seafood importers and buyers from supermarkets to keep track of them all. According to Ms. Kemmerly, Vietnam alone has well over 100,000 shrimp farms.
Instead, these buyers either rely on partnership with an organization like Seafood Watch to identify better performing shrimp farms, or, they can look for a certification from an independent, nonprofit assessing agency. (Only about 3 percent to 6 percent of shrimp farms are assessed, which is a voluntary process that the farms pay for.)
The certifications a consumer in the United States is most likely to encounter are the Global Aquaculture Alliance (G.A.A.), which has developed standards called the Best Aquaculture Practices (B.A.P.). There is also the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (A.S.C.), which is more established and widespread in Europe.
If you see any of these abbreviations listed on the label of your frozen shrimp or at your fish market, you can go ahead and buy with confidence. (Look for at least a two-star B.A.P. rating, out of four stars.)
While all these endorsements address the environmental sustainability of the farms, only the B.A.P. and A.S.C. take fair labor practices into consideration. (Seafood Watch is developing tools to do this in the near future.) And, none of them can tell you anything about the quality of the shrimp’s flavor and texture — for example, whether the shrimp have been treated with chemicals after harvesting, whether they’ve been mishandled during processing or whether they’ve been thawed and frozen several times over, all of which can leave them soft and watery.
This is where trusting your retailer comes in. The best fishmongers use organizations like Seafood Watch and the certifying agencies as a starting point for finding their shrimp, then many add their own sets of criteria around chemical use and speed and quality of processing. Some of the largest retailers even visit the farms and processors themselves.
At Hapuku Fish Shop at Rockridge Market Hall in Oakland, Calif., the manager, Tya Nguyen, said that when her customers see farmed shrimp among the eco-friendly offerings the shop is known for, they’re sometimes surprised.
“We let our customers know that we have our own list of very high-quality standards,” she said. “I always tell them, ‘Not all farmed is bad, not all wild is good.’”
At the end of the day, if consumers want the best, most sustainable and most ethical shrimp, it’s up to them to seek it out. And this may require a shift in expectations, particularly when it comes to price.
“I’ve radically reduced the amount of shrimp I buy,” Mr. Greenberg said. “People should think of shrimp like steak: a once-in-a-while thing that’s worth paying more for.”
Recipes: Sheet-Pan Shrimp Scampi | Spicy Shrimp Boil With Lemon Butter | Coconut-Lime Shrimp
