March 31, 2020 — Like the product they specialize in selling, US importers of warmwater shrimp are “frozen” on how to sort out the market puzzle created recently by the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, according to Travis Larkin, president of the Seafood Exchange, in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Foodservice establishments around the country have been ordered to stay closed altogether or are operating under strict limitations, while retail businesses — by contrast — are scrambling to replace their shrimp inventory after a few weeks of panic buying.
“What are importers to do in response?” Undercurrent News asked.
“I don’t think anybody really knows,” answered Larkin, a longtime industry veteran who joined Seafood Exchange in 1997. “You would think that with something of this magnitude, there would be some drastic outcome that we all would predict will come to pass. But I think this is so stunning and so preposterous compared to what we ever thought could happen, that it almost feels like everything is frozen in time and I really haven’t seen any direction in any sense.