Dried Shrimp and Shrimp Meal 



The raw material for the shrimp drying platforms are sea bobs, 

 grooved and white slirimp. After drying, the shrimp are packed in 50- 

 pound boxes and 200-pound barrels for the wholesale trade. The most 

 common wholesale package is the 50-pound box, although smaller packages 

 are available to meet the demands of the local retail trade. Dried 

 shrimp are packed for export trade in the same type of containers that 

 are used for the domestic wholesale trade. 



Sales of dried shrimp, confined for the most part to San 

 Francisco, New York and other cities having a large population of 

 Oriental descent, are transacted by specialty wholesale brokers under 

 customary brokerage arrangements. 



Dried shrimp are retailed in bulk form, usually in specialty 

 stores located in the Oriental sections of large cities. About 400 

 dried shrimp are equivalent to one pound. A quarter of a pound is 

 considered an average sale. In the Gulf States, near the point of 

 production, dried shrimp are sold like potato chips in small cello- 

 phane bags. 



Shrimp meal which is a by-product of the drying, and to 

 some extent of the canning industry, has a very limited market and is 

 usually sold locally as a feed mix, and at one time was also used as 

 fertilizer. 



MARKET AGENTS 



Whether shrijnp ultimately reach the retail market in fresh, 

 canned, frozen, or breaded form, the key function near the be- 

 ginning of the distribution chain is performed by the wholesaler who 

 assembles the shrimp from a group of fresh shrimp plants. Individual 

 fresh shrimp plants cannot, as a rule, produce enough shrimp to meet 

 the demands of either a processor or a volume buyer, unless they them- 

 selves take over the function of assembling. The interposition of a 

 middleman between raw shrimp plant and processor is not necessarily 

 uneconomical; in the large scale handling of shrimp it may becane a 

 cost saving necessity. 



In Texas ports, the dock-side plant often buys the shrimp 

 from the boat owner and freezes them. Under these conditions, the 

 product is stored by the establishment in its own name until it is dis- 

 posed of. Public freezers and storage warehouses in this State operate 

 in one of two ways. They either take the shrimp directly from the 

 shrimp plant and perform all of the necessary operations Including 

 washing, grading, and packing in the consumer package; freezing, glazing 



