Cold-water prawns, cooked & peeled
Cold-water prawns in the kitchen
The cold-water prawn is consumed throughout the world and is a true delicacy, perfect for the entire family. The prawn is a good source of protein and selenium, low in calories and has a high content of vitamin B12.
The cooked prawn has beautiful pink and white meat and a firm, juicy texture, with a pleasant ocean flavour, a touch of sweetness and a little shellfish bitterness. Cold-water prawns served shell-on are a crispy bite. The prawn is versatile and can be enjoyed cold or added at the end of preparing a hot meal, to avoid overcooking and to preserve flavour and moisture. The cold-water prawn is best served as the main ingredient in a recipe or as a meal in itself, where its complex flavour is not overpowered and can be fully savoured.
Cold-water prawns are enjoyed across the world; a true delicacy !
A preferred prawn for salads and cold applications
Cold-water prawn products
Cold-water prawns are sold in a variety of products to meet customers' needs. Our most popular products are:
- Raw or Cooked with the shell on (SOP)
These prawns are processed onboard on our trawlers within few hours after catch
- Cooked and Peeled (C&P)
These prawns are processed at our land-based plants. Also available in brine
Our cold-water prawn fisheries are predominantly certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)
Cold-water prawns in the sea
The cold-water prawn lives throughout the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean, from Canada to Norway. The cold surroundings make the prawn grow slowly, which provides ideal conditions to fully develop the complex flavour and texture.
The prawn has an almost translucent red shell with long and red antennaes. The spherical black eyes are accompanied by a set of two small, jagged horns at the front. From time to time the prawn’s head (where the stomach sits) may appear slightly darker. The colour may be caused by the prawn’s feed, or it may be developing eggs for spawning. The slightly darker colour of the head does not affect flavour or quality.
The prawn lives near the seabed in soft and muddy benthic conditions at depths of between 20 and 1,400 metres. It prefers water temperatures between 0 and 8°C and feeds mainly on plankton, krill and microscopic worms.
Cold water prawn habitat
The cold-water prawn lives throughout the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean, from Canada to Norway
Do you know the difference between cold-water prawns and farmed warm-water prawns ?
The cold surroundings make the cold-water prawn grow slowly, and it is usually caught when it is around six years old. Farmed warm-water prawn is usually fully grown when it is around six months old.
Fishery
Cold-water prawns can be caught all year round, but fishing is limited by the ice conditions. In Greenland, it is mandatory to land minimum 25 % of the total catch for on-land processing.
Cold-water prawns for Cooked and Peeled can be caught inshore or offshore, which also defines whether they are single frozen or double frozen.
Inshore prawn fisheries = single frozen
Inshore, the cold-water prawns are caught by local fishermen in small vessels. They fish quite close to the shore, but at great depths, to reach the prawns’ seabed habitat. The prawns are caught in a trawl net and hauled on board. Then the prawns are stored on ice for a maximum of four days, or until the fishermen have filled their on-board storage facilities. The catch is landed at one of Royal Greenland's land-based factories, where the prawns’ size and appearance are rated prior to processing.
All our cooked and peeled prawns from inshore fisheries are single frozen.
Inshore fishing
Inshore fishing involves smaller vessels operating near our processing facilities, where prawns are peeled, cooked, and then packed and frozen. This proximity to production facilities ensures a single-freezing process.
Offshore prawn fisheries = double frozen
Offshore fishing is by trawl, from a trawler. Royal Greenland's trawls are fitted with sorting grids and escape panels that lead any larger fish that have entered the trawl opening back into the sea. Royal Greenland also supports the research and development of less invasive trawling methods with less impact on the seabed and reduced fuel consumption for the fishing vessels.
The prawns are immediately frozen on board, and when the trawler returns to land, the prawns are thawed, cooked, peeled, and refrozen at one of our land-based production facilities.
All our cooked and peeled prawns from offshore fisheries are double frozen.
Offshore fishing
The trawl is lowered several hundred meters onto the seabed, where the prawns are trapped in the net and hauled on board for processing.
Processing
At our land-based factories in Greenland and Canada the cold-water prawns are quality-assessed and size-graded before entering the production line. The prawns are cooked and peeled before they are individually quick frozen (IQF). Finally they are packed and shipped to customers around the world or to our production plants for further processing.
Land based production lines
The prawns are cooked and peeled before they are individually quick frozen (IQF), and finally packed before shipping off.
Cuxhaven, Germany
At our production plant in Germany, the prawns are brined or repacked before shipped to customers around the world.