I am disgusted at Aldi selling these Argentinian prawns, under the Ocean Royale brand belonging to them, clearly mentioning this in the front of the pack, but only writing at the back that they were packed in China. I have let them know.
Also known as Argentinian Red Shrimp, these are considered one of the best type of prawns. As they only seem to exist in Argentina, I assumed that they would be packaged there.
Really, while legal, I consider this a misleading marketing tactic, and this indicated how alert we have to be about food products.
There is a lot of seafood which is wild harvested around the world and sent to China (or other Asian countries such as Vietnam) for processing. There is also some Australian fish which is also follows this processing path - whiting comes to mind. It is possibly done to reduce costs and also use the Chinese distribution channels for accessing markets.
If one is watching the embodied energy in their foods to reduce that footprint, it can be very deceptive as the seafood items have travelled far and wide before ending up on the supermarket shelves.
Coles often have peeled Australian prawns for sale in the seafood section of the deli with the sign stating that they are Australian prawns processed in Vietnam. Just cheap labour for time consuming processes.
I also watched a documentary on TV some years ago regarding scampi caught in the UK being sent to Thailand for processing.
The “food mile” critics were up in arms but the program clearly demonstrated that it was actually more enviromentally friendly than if the scampi had been processes in the UK.
