June 15, 2010

US shrimp prices skyrocket over 40%

The price of nationally produced US shrimp has climbed by over 40% to US$6.20 per lb since the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to reports.

This trend reverses that of decades of falling prices. The international trade of shrimp is worth a yearly US$15 billion.

Apart from the oil spill's influence on prices, experts said, global production of farmed shrimp dropped in 2009 for the first time resulting from an outbreak of disease in Asia, bad weather and record high fishmeal feed prices.

US shrimp prices already grew by 15% from the beginning of the 2010 to when the oil spill hit on April 20. Prices in Japan, where large shrimp are an important aspect of sushi, have escalated by 18% in yen terms since the start of the year, reports said.

"For the first time in many, many years it looks quite positive for prices," said fisheries expert at the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Helga Josupeit.

Josupeit expected prices to remain high or jump as low supplies tighten the market. The new season's harvest will arrive in the coming months. Restaurants and food companies, fearing prices will continue to rocket, are hoarding supplies, executives said.

The US is the world's largest consumer of shrimp. Although the country imports most of its shrimp from places such as Thailand, Indonesia, Ecuador and Vietnam, it acquires about an eighth of its total supply from the Gulf of Mexico.

However, a third of the Gulf's fishing areas are now off limits due to the spill.

The boom of shrimp aquaculture over the past two decades made prices dive to their lowest levels ever late last year, turning shrimp into an affordable food.

Meanwhile, annual per capita consumption in the US rose from 1.4 lb in 1980 to 4.1 lb in 2008.