Shrimp Product Forms

There are various types of shrimp worldwide as well as a great difference of product forms. From fresh and frozen, raw and cooked, to raw breaded, shrimp variety seems endless. Majority of shrimp is sold frozen with the following primary product forms:

Shell On (S/O): Standard market form includes the tail segments, vein, shell and tail fin. They are also known as "Green headless" or "headless" due to the uncooked, raw state of the shrimp. This type of shrimp cooked has to be stated as Shell-on Cooked.

Peeled: Headless, raw shrimp without the shell.

Block Frozen: Pounds of shrimp frozen in an ice block form to retain integrity. Come in two forms: Layerpack (hand packed shrimp, neatly frozen in a pattern and double glazed) and Random (shrimp are not evenly glazed).

PUD: Peeled and undeveined shrimp with the tail on or off. It can come in raw or cooked form.

P&D: Peeled and deveined, also known as IQF P&D (Individually Quick Frozen) with the tail on or off. IT can also come raw or cooked.

Tail On (T/O): Undeveined shrimp with the tail still intact.

Butterfly: Tail on shrimp cut deeply along the upper side, and laid flat with the two sides laying side by side.

Split: This type of shrimp form is cut all the way through into two separate halves, only attached at the tail.

When purchasing shrimp, make sure that:

• the shrimp are uniformed in color, size and condition
• the shrimp smell like seaweed or seawater
• breaded shrimp is free of excess batter and breading
• there is no foreign objects included

Breaded Shrimp

Breaded shrimp is very common and popular worldwide. It can be breaded by hand or machine and is usually processed raw and sold frozen. There are several forms of breaded shrimp that can be purchased such as butterfly, popcorn, split, round or whole, with the tail on or off. With so many choices, no wonder shrimp is the most commonly breaded shellfish out there.

Breaded shrimp also falls under 3 forms of coating:
Lightly Dusted: Coating up to 35% of breading of shrimp
Standard Breaded Shrimp: most common form of breaded shrimp of 48% breading.
Imitation Breaded Shrimp: This type of shrimp is 65% breaded.

Shrimp Count

Shrimp are customarily sold by the count or number of individual headless, shell-on shrimp per pound. Buyers should not order shrimp by descriptive names, i.e., jumbo, large, medium. Ordering by counts is more precise and understandable. Any count or size mix can be ordered, but common commercial counts begin in units of five. The listed counts are most common for the packing house or dockside.