In addition to providing storage space, the public freezer 

 in the producing area frequently will psrform other services for its 

 cuatomers. As already mentioned, the freezer may perform all the proc- 

 essing operations for the shrimp plant and prepare the product for the 

 consumer market. The public facility, in contrast to the shrinp freez- 

 ing plant, does not take title to the shrimp it freezes but performs 

 all functions on a fee basis. 



Storage of the canned product is usually handled by the can- 

 nery itself. Many of the canneries are bonded as "field warehouses". 

 The cainneries allocate space to be used for warehousing in accordance 

 with their needs. The shelf -life of canned shrimp can be increased by 

 maintaining storage temperatures at kO° F. to 70° F. 



Storage Life 



Storage life of shrimp apparently varies with differences in 

 processing procedtire. Experiments conducted at Louisiana State Univer- 

 sity (Fieger, I9I48) established that the storage life of samples of 

 frozen Gulf Coast shriirp was as follows: 



Item Storage limits 



Shrimp stored without glaze or overwrap 7-9 months 



Shrimp stored with glaze or with overwrap longer than 12 months 



Studies with shrimp of the -^andalus family, conducted by the 

 Canadian Fisheries Research Board Laboratory in Vancouver, B. C, re- 

 s\ilted in the following recommendations with respect to storage limits: 



Item StorsLge Umlts 



Shrin^), cooked, peeled, blanched, canned and frozen 3 months 



Shrimp, cooked, peeled, blanched, canned, topped longer than 12 mcnths 



with water and frozen 



Shrimp, cooked, picked, blanched, canned and frozen k-6 months 



Statistics on Cold Storage Holdings 



Statistics on cold storage holdings of shrimp for the last of 

 each month have been tabulated for the years 19U0, 19U5, and 1950-1958 

 (see table VII - 15). These data are for companies reporting on their 

 holdings to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service; they represent 

 the major portion but not ail holdings of shrimp in the United States. 



Average holdings (as represented by the arithmetic means of 

 the 12 end-of -month figures) rose from 3.3 million pounds in 19iiO to a 

 peak of 25.0 million pounds in 1958, as shown in table VII - 15. This 

 increase reflects both the rising popularity of the frozen product as 

 well as the growth in cold storage capacity over the period. The un- 

 usually large inventories recorded for the last few months of 1953 and 



68 



