The warmwater shrimp revolution

If there was ever a story of great product innovation, this is it.

As a London child of the '70s there were two distinct signals that people were coming for dinner:

1) my dad was in the kitchen drowning in a sea of bowls and stress and

2) there was a small pot of tiny pink supermarket shrimp in the fridge.

The exotic shrimp cocktail -- bland, wet and pallid and on special occasions served in half an avocado -- was as close as my family got to eating shrimp of any kind. Well, that, and watching my nan spear them on toothpicks from a small polystyrene cup on our annual trips to the seaside.

I heard tell that these coldwater gems were also an available sandwich filling in coastal tea rooms, veiled in a thick sludge of mayonnaise and served up alongside the equally "special occasion" tinned salmon, with slithers of soggy cucumber on curled, crustless white bread.

But this was as far as it went.

Shrimp, in my mind, were teensy tiny, briny little squibs of wet that no one enjoyed, but some felt the need to bring out on special occasions to prove their good taste.

As I grew up and trendy sandwich shops started to pop up on London highstreets, I remember an early boyfriend purchasing a crayfish sandwich from Pret A Manger -- a move that immediately propelled him into the realms of “mysterious and adventurous” in my seafood innocence. I had no idea what crayfish even was.

As for the larger, meatier warmwater shrimp, they were virtually non-existent on the British menu.

I suppose they were probably there, buried on the back page of stained Indian and Chinese takeaway menus, but they would have been expensive and unfamiliar territory for the average British consumer.

So, as I looked at the latest Nielsen statistics on the last year’s UK retail sales, it struck me what an incredible transformation has been made in the UK shrimp industry over the last 20 to 30 years.

Sales have been steadily increasing year on year in both the cold and warmwater sectors, but a couple of years ago warmwater product overtook coldwater and now accounts for 18,817 metric tons or 58.4 percent of sales by volume --  60.6 percent by value. That's a 13 percent increase over last year.

As I wrote in Tuesday’s analysis, this is in part a reflection of pricing. Warmwater shrimp prices have fallen at retail pretty consistently over the last several years. 

But they are still more expensive than coldwater, so this in only a small part of the draw.

It is also in part their versatility -- available in raw, cooked, breaded, sauced, chilled, frozen -- shrimp producers have done a stellar job of eeking value from a cheap protein.

The UK is of course nowhere near the United States in terms of per capita shrimp consumption -- Americans came to the shrimp party early -- but as the year-on-year growth of American staples such as breaded shrimp rockets at UK retail, a similar consumption pattern is probably in the cards.

Who sells it is also an interesting part of the story. 

Coldwater shrimp was always the domain of mid-range supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s and Tesco, but as warmwater entered the market, it was high-end retailers such as Marks & Spencer who first claimed it as their own, selling pre-cooked platters to be whipped out at a fancy lunch or picnic.

As European budget retailers Aldi and Lidl entered the scene, they brought with them a new approach to traditionally high-end food, simplifying the offering and reducing margins to attract a younger crowd.

And all three of these retailers are taking market share from the mid-range, who haven’t quite positioned their warmwater offerings to the best of their advantage… yet.

But I don't think growth is anywhere near plateauing, so the challenge now is to ensure sustainable production and stable pricing.

Gone are the days of the shrimp cocktail (thank God), but with continued innovation, the years ahead hold great promise for warmwater shrimp at UK retail.