Sakura shrimp are individually frozen and coated using high-end automated equipment, with each one whole and flawless.
Sakura shrimp are one of the delicacies on Japanese dinner plates. Individuals with intact legs, antennae, eyes and tails in particular can be sold to high-end restaurants. With funding support from the Council of Agriculture's special research program, seafood processing operators worked with National Pingtung University of Science and Technology to successfully develop an individual quick freezing and coating technique for sakura shrimp using micro-coating technology and a vibration module, which can also be produced automatically, saving 80% of manpower. The same production line can also be used for redtail shrimp and whitebait, these 2 small aquatic products. Even outside the sakura shrimp season, the production line can still keep operating without going to waste.
Huang Wen-yi, section chief of the Department of Science and Technology of the Council of Agriculture, said Taiwan's sakura shrimp producing areas are Toucheng in Yilan and Donggang in Pingtung, with the season running from November to May of the following year, and the color and flavor are very popular in the Japanese market. Exports to Japan are usually packed in one large bag and shipped frozen. Because it is one large bag, it is repeatedly thawed during use, which not only affects the flavor but also raises major concerns about the freshness of the ingredient. In practice it has also been found that large-package frozen products tend to clump, and broken legs and antennae are commonly seen after thawing. Sakura shrimp with this kind of unacceptable appearance can only be classified as substandard product and sold at a low price.
When sakura shrimp are processed by traditional freezing methods, 50% of the bodies break, and the rate of broken antennae is as high as 95%. With the new freezing technique, the whole-body rate of sakura shrimp is as high as 80%. This year the operator's orders from Japan increased by 20%, and therefore its purchases of Donggang sakura shrimp also increased, from 50 metric tons last year to 75 metric tons this year.
Huang Wen-yi pointed out that with the support of the special research program, industry-academia cooperation completed the development of mass-production vibration separation equipment. This technique separates individual sakura shrimp by vibration, applies food-grade glue, then freezes and packs them, effectively improving the whole-body rate and various freshness and quality indicators. Moreover, because the equipment is automated, manpower is greatly saved and manufacturers' processing costs are reduced. When the special research program concluded, 3 new products had been developed, including: individually micro-coated sakura shrimp, redtail shrimp and whitebait, as well as 3 derived new products: sakura shrimp paste, dried sakura shrimp and sakura shrimp powder.
Sakura shrimp and redtail shrimp are both fisheries specific to Pingtung County. The allowable harvest volume and quota are adjusted each year according to the annual resource volume. These 2 aquatic products are also the main business of the Donggang District Fishermen's Association's coastal and offshore fisheries, which has also organized production and marketing groups to strictly enforce management matters. The fishing season for sakura shrimp is from November to May of the following year, and from June 1 to October 31 each year is the closed season.
