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Shrimp
Marketing in the United States
by Granvil Treece
US consumers have been eating
and paying more for shrimp in recent years.
According
to a recent study conducted by Food Beat,
Inc., despite the glut of low priced shrimp
imports, prices of shrimp at the retail level
have increased since 2000. Even though retail
prices have increased, the farm gate prices
for shrimp have decreased, and shrimp farmers
have few options to offset this farm gate
price decline. There are mainly two options
for improving profitability: reduce costs
or increase revenue (or a little of both).
Reducing costs often involves increasing
the efficiency of production. Increasing
revenue may also involve improve efficiency. |
For
example, reducing shrimp mortality or increasing
pounds of shrimp marketed from the same pond acreage
would increase revenue. Growing a larger shrimp
might increase revenue.
In recent years,
there has been more competition in the hatchery
trade and this has resulted in lower postlarval
prices for the farmers; however, those savings
have been offset with increases in feed costs.
Efforts to increase revenue often involve making
changes in marketing strategies. ‘Value-added’ has
been used in shrimp processing to describe efforts
by producers to capture more of the consumer’s
dollar. Capturing more of the final value of
a product is a goal for some successful shrimp
producers. A proper understanding of the marketing
channels and the roles of different individuals
and firms in it will be helpful to anyone considering
value-added marketing strategies.
Many efforts
by shrimp producers to add value actually consist
of trying to capture the difference between the
farm price of a raw shrimp and the retail price
of a finished product. Examples of this concept
would be: Dale Schmidt selling his product fresh
on the pond bank at D&T Shrimp Farm in Imperial
(Photo 1); Robert Smiley selling two ponds of
40 gram vannamei directly to customers at the
pond bank in San Perlita; Bart Reid selling his
organically raised product at the Permian Sea Shrimp
Store in Imperial (Photo 2); or Harold Bowers
selling part of his farm raised shrimp in IQF
plastic bags from his processing and cold storage
plant in Palacios, Texas. The marketing margin
is the total amount of money that is available
to pay for all of the marketing services required
to convert raw shrimp at the farm into a finished
product in the final market place. Marketing
is also advertising. Promoting a product is part
of marketing. Marketing involves processing,
storage, transportation, and a host of related
activities necessary to produce a retail shrimp
product. See Kohls, R.L. and J.N. Uhl, “Marketing
of Agricultural Products”, 6th Edition.
MacMillan Publishing, New York: 1985 for more
information on marketing food products.
Granvil Treece, M.S. —
Aquaculture specialist for the Texas Sea Grant
College Program, has 26 years’ experience
in shrimp culture (three years as a commercial
shrimp hatchery manager) and is on the board
of the Texas Aquaculture Association. |
