Argentine red shrimp land frozen season has recently begun. It is known that the production of land frozen products this year is more than that in previous years, with an estimated output of 200,000 tons. This is mainly due to the general performance of fishing boats this year, so shipowners have turned to fishing red shrimp.

According to Fernando Lago, International Sales Director of Iberconsa, a manufacturer and exporter of red shrimp, 75% of the increased production will be used to produce products with higher added value, such as headless shrimp and shrimp meat, because of the relatively high production of frozen red shrimp.

The production of frozen red shrimp is increasing, which can also be reflected in the import volume of various countries. As of July this year, China imported 6482 tons of frozen red shrimp, up 22% from the same period last year; Spain imported 5467 tons, up 20% from the same period last year; Thailand imported 4089 tons, up 28% from the same period last year.

The output of land-frozen products has increased substantially, and future market prices will bear greater downward pressure. It is expected that the latest batch of land-frozen products will arrive in Hong Kong at the end of the year. However, as the Spring Festival approaches, the increase in purchases will bring some support to prices, such as red shrimp, which is more suitable for household consumption, and there may not be a significant price reduction.

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Ship and Land Freezing of Argentine Red Shrimp

1, time

If you also distribute Argentine red shrimp products, do you know the time difference between Argentine red shrimp frozen by boat and frozen by land?

Generally speaking, Argentine red shrimp fishing is divided into ship frozen season and land frozen season. The starting and ending time of the freezing season is notified by the relevant Argentine government departments. It usually begins in April-May and ends in the first week of October-November.

The land freezing season is not so fixed, July-September, November-February-March. Generally speaking, the frozen shrimp produced from July to September is mainly decapitated shrimp. From November to February to March next year, the frozen whole shrimp and decapitated shrimp are produced.

2. Processing process

The following video shows the fishing and processing of frozen and frozen red shrimp from Krustagroup, ARBUMASA Red Shrimp Producer, for 4 minutes and 3 seconds.

Ship frozen Argentine red shrimp is a kind of cryogenic freezing equipment that directly enters the temperature range from - 30 to - 40 (?) for freezing. The process is generally cleaning and screening on board, grading boxes, cryogenic freezing, packaging and freezing, and freezing at minus 25 (?) degrees on board. This not only inhibits the activity of bacteria, but also makes the protein in shrimp discharging acid automatically at - 30 C, which greatly reduces the drift. So the requirement of frozen products for fishing vessels is still very high. A frozen fishing vessel with qualified equipment has a total investment of $3 million to $5 million, and its hull length is 35 to 55 meters. There are 25 to 50 people on each vessel. According to the size of the vessel, the fishing capacity, processing capacity and low temperature storage capacity will change. Most Argentine frozen fishing vessels (about 80%) are about 35 meters long. They can freeze 8 to 10 tons a day and store about 70 tons. They return to ship and unload after filling up.

Land-frozen Argentine red shrimp, that is, seafood ashore and then frozen. Because of the difference of preservation conditions, the freshness of land-frozen products is quite different from that of ship-frozen products, and the price is also reflected. Frozen red shrimp products include whole shrimp, decapitated shrimp, shrimp meat and other refined products. In 2013, Krustagroup, a Brazilian processing exporter, introduced a Mediterranean-flavored ready-to-eat Argentine red shrimp.

With the increase of land freezing, it's time for red shrimp to get out of the low added value circle.

According to Fernando Lago, Iberconsa's Director of International Sales, the company is planning to increase production of high value-added red shrimp products by using headless shrimp as raw material as the production of frozen red shrimp increases.

"We are rebuilding some of our factories, investing $3 million to build a second single freezing production line, adding a single quick-freezing machine, and expanding the capacity of refrigerators to produce high value-added products," he said. On the other hand, the company has increased its investment in fishing, including the purchase of new vessels and the renovation of other vessels. Earlier this year, Iberconsa acquired a wetfish trawler from Grupo Valastro, which was previously used for cod fishing and later for red shrimp fishing.

Ship frozen products have been sold smoothly all the way

This year, the sale of frozen products is relatively stable and the price fluctuation is not large, but the L1 L2 L3 price is about $7 per pound. In previous years, the price of L1 will be higher than that of L2/L3, with a difference of about $1 per specification. But this year, it is very rare. The price of L2/L3 is even higher than that of L1. However, the market of frozen products is very stable. Spain, Italy, Portugal in Europe, China and Japan in Asia are all big importers of frozen Argentine red shrimp.

Source: Introduction to Frozen Products