Canada seeing aggressive Chinese buying on coldwater shrimp
As recently as the Boston seafood show, Ocean Choice International had been expecting the majority of its shrimp production to go to industrial, cooked and peeled production.
But as it turns out, now Chinese demand is so strong, and they are buying so aggressively, that almost all of the Canadian firm’s production is going to cooked shell-on for that market, Dale Oldford, vice president of product management and marketing, told Undercurrent.
“They had a particularly strong New Year for sales, apparently, so inventories are used up and demand is high. As far as we can tell — and this can change — but this situation looks like it could remain for four to six months,” he said.
It looks like, contrary to what had been expected for 2015, few of the small shrimp caught will go to the peeling plants, he added.