Does Your Local Grocery Store Accurately Label Its Shrimp?

Over the years, the American Shrimp Processors Association and Wild American Shrimp have encouraged consumers to look at the front and back of packages of shrimp in grocery stores. We want people to make sure they are buying wild-caught American shrimp and not imported, farm-raised shrimp. Some imported brands use Americanized brand names and package designs that often lead people to believe that the products are wild-caught and American, so it’s important to look closely.

As part of our effort to stay aware of trends in retail packaging and merchandising, our team visits grocery stores from time to time. We visited a Rouses Market in Mississippi and were pleasantly surprised at what we saw and learned.

The first observation was that Rouses offered a large variety of types of wild-caught shrimp – from boiled, to peeled/deveined and thawed, to block frozen, to individually quick frozen — both unpeeled and peeled. They even had an open, self-serve display designed to hold iced-down seafood in which you could buy wild-caught shrimp by the pound.

As we looked through all of the various types of shrimp for sale in Rouses, we noticed a pattern: not only were wild-caught, American shrimp labeled as such on the packaging by the suppliers when it was a branded product, but the words wild or wild-caught, USA or American Shrimp were listed on the actual “store-generated” price labels for each type of shrimp!

Since most people look at the price label, even if they don’t look for a Wild American Shrimp logo or wild-caught American designation, they are much more likely to notice these words on the price label.

We saw several ASPA member processors’ brands in Rouses. But since some of the product was private-labeled, there’s a high probability that even more of our processors are represented in that store. ASPA processors handle the vast majority of Gulf and South Atlantic wild-caught shrimp production.

The important point here is that wherever you live in the U.S., look on the package to see where those shrimp are from. If the shrimp are in a seafood market display, ask where they are from. We are thankful that Rouses goes the extra mile to put the words wild, wild-caught, USA and/or Gulf or American on its labels. They have recognized that Wild American Shrimp are special and deserve to be distinguished.

Does your local grocery store clearly differentiate their wild-caught American shrimp from the imported shrimp? Do they place the words on their price labels?

Let us know by sending photos with the name and location of your store! See our photos below and note the in-store label wording!

For more information about our U.S. wild-caught Wild American Shrimp, including news, interesting facts, history, recipes, and more, visit our Blog! To order wild-caught American shrimp for yourself or your business, click HERE!