DEL PACIFICO
WILD CAUGHT
SHRIMP
Fair Trade Certified
Succulent and Snappy
Del Pacifico Mexican Blue Shrimp are sweet and succulent with a crisp, snappy texture — the way wild-caught shrimp are supposed to taste. Other shrimp operations will have two-week long excursions and have to brine and freeze the shrimp at sea for preservation (the reason why shrimp can sometimes taste salty) — but Del Pacifico shrimp are brought back and harvested the same day. This same-day, out-and-back operation makes their product some of the freshest around; it hasn’t been thawed and refrozen multiple times before getting to you. Easy to peel, deveined by hand and completely preservative and chemical free, these shrimp are far superior to anything you’ll find at the supermarket.
100% Traceable and Fair Trade Certified
Using the lot number on your package, you can trace your shrimp back to the day it was caught and find out more about the community it came from. Your purchase is powerful and supports the preservation of small scale fishing operations — and also supports local social and environmental causes through a Fair Trade premium. As the first and only Fair Trade Certified wild shrimp company, 5% of the wholesale price goes back to the community to invest in their greatest needs, anything from adding AC to schools to reforestation projects. The Fair Trade Certification goes even further than social and economic empowerment, too — it's also a measure of sustainability and sets the bar high for environmental stewardship.
Panga Boats in the Mexican Pacific
Tucked inside the bays off the western coast of Mexico, a fleet of colorful sails dots the blue horizon where the sea meets the sky. To a tourist, these sailboats might look like a vacationer’s paradise — but they’re actually artisanal panga boats, the best and most sustainable way to catch the Mexican Blue Shrimp swimming beneath them. A small outboard motor helps get these day-boat vessels out to the right spot, but around 2 o’clock, the fishermen throw the sails up and harness the power of the winds and tide to drift their nets.
An Artisanal Technique
Dropping 80-foot suripera nets (a modified cast net) into the sea, the fisherman can actually feel the vibrations of the shrimp and know from years of experience when to pull up. This isn’t a typical Bubba Gump fishing boat — the net and artisanal technique they use has the lowest bycatch of any other method, eight times lower than the average shrimp trawl, plus uses the lowest amount of fuel. And unlike a trawler, which can scrape the bottom of the ocean and destroy the surrounding ecosystem, much of the bycatch in a suripera net can be returned back to the sea and keeps environmental disruption to a minimum.
