Shrimp marketing

Shrimp are marketed and commercialised with several issues in mind.

Most shrimp are sold frozen and marketed based on their categorisation of presentation, grading, colour, and uniformity.

[1] The main forms of presentation are head-on shell on (HOSO), shell-on (SO or "green headless shrimp"), peeled tail on (PTO), peeled undeveined (PUD), peeled and deveined (P&D), peeled deveined and tail on deveined (PDTO) and butterfly tail on (BTTY-TO).

[2] European and Asian markets prefer the HOSO presentation (which is a whole shrimp), while the American shrimp market prefers the remaining presentations.

The numbers in the grading code indicate maximum and minimum quantity of pieces per unit weight, with U standing for "under".