Would Melbourne eat it?

27 November 2026

Part 17 of 18 · A history of the giant freshwater prawn

His script had four questions. What do you pay for prawns now? How much of a prawn do you expect to be meat? Would you pay more for local? Would you try a sample? The fourth had to wait. We don’t have a prawn to taste yet.

Ashit Sreekumar, a Master of Biotechnology student at the University of Melbourne, took the script to Melbourne’s fishmongers and restaurants this year (2026), as part of a student team working with SHRMP.bio. He had seven conversations with six businesses. Not field market research by the book, but an expedition: to find some first data points for his project, information that was missing and not available anywhere accessible from a computer. As he writes plainly himself, a sample that small, chosen for convenience, gives early indications, not conclusions.[1]

Before the first question, he showed each business a photo of the prawn. In fine dining, most knew it. In ordinary restaurants and shops, most either did not recognise it or said it was nothing they buy or sell, though the managers knew a saltwater prawn from a freshwater one. Much of the confusion came from language, culture and differing local names, especially in Asian shops.[1] This prawn has trouble with names, in shops and among scientists (Part 16).

But two answers stood out.

The first was meat. The sellers who answered expected 60 to 75 per cent of a prawn’s weight to be meat.[1] In a study of 233 farmed giant freshwater prawns in India, tail meat came to about 26 to 41 per cent of body weight in males and 33 to 42 per cent in females; much of the difference lies in the head and claws.[2] Those figures are for the farmed species; Australia’s own prawn (Part 16) may differ. Sold by the kilogram as if it were meat, the prawn gives a buyer between a third and two-thirds of what they expect.

The second was the word. Both businesses that said no objected to freshwater prawns, linking freshwater to a muddy taste.[1] They are not alone: in a national survey, taste was the most common reason Australians gave for never buying a particular seafood, and half of those who never buy prawns said so.[3] Staff at AquaCore, Monash University’s aquatic research facility, told the team that taste depends more on feed and stress than on the kind of water, but their experience is with other animals.[1] A discussion during CSIRO’s Innovate to Grow programme pointed to handling: a prawn’s taste comes from how it is handled before and after harvest.[4] Taste, in other words, seems not to be well researched either. For this prawn, the test will need to be a tasting.

In a second round, he asked restaurants across six areas of Melbourne to sign a letter of intent. None were ready to sign. Most already buy their prawns from Asia, through a long-standing supplier,[1] which is no surprise in a country that imports an estimated 62 per cent of the edible seafood it eats, by weight.[5] And restaurants buy by the kilogram. Some were open to a taste before talking further. The interest that did appear came mostly from fine dining, the same businesses that already knew the prawn.

Would buyers pay more for a local prawn? The published evidence says it depends on what “local” means to them. In a 2008 choice experiment with 1,146 Australian seafood consumers, reported in a 2010 review, more than 60 per cent preferred prawns labelled Australian or Spencer Gulf over prawns from Thailand or China, and origin weighed most in their choices; the review cautions that the line-up of countries may have inflated that.[6] Asked to rate factors one by one in a 2019 national survey, more seafood eaters rated freshness highly (74 per cent) than price (71) or origin (61).[3] And in a Queensland study on barramundi, freshness drew the highest premium; a premium for “local” appeared only among people in regional coastal areas, near the catch, while city consumers were largely indifferent to origin.[7] On a personal note: since running a research project with Swinburne University last year, we, as a family, have become very attuned to where our seafood comes from (that is a separate story).

Since 1 July 2026, every restaurant in Australia must mark its seafood dishes Australian, imported or mixed.[8] At least the menu now shows where a prawn came from. But the evidence suggests that freshness is king (or at least perceived freshness), and that in a city, diners are willing to pay mostly for that.

Ashit’s conclusion for SHRMP.bio: don’t sell a prawn by weight against imports. What’s required is a fresh, whole prawn served as a feature dish, fine dining first, and tasted before anyone is convinced.[1]

That brings the series back to its two questions. The prawn worth selling is a large, whole one, and size is what the pond keeps from most of them: one blue-claw prawn slows another’s growth, and the biggest males stop growing (too early) (Part 6, Part 10). Building a research plan to answer those questions is what we spent much of our time on in CSIRO’s Innovate to Grow programme.

Sources

1. Sreekumar, A. (2026), Final individual report: market and competitor analysis, University of Melbourne (SCIE90015), 6 November 2026. Unpublished student report: the buyer conversations (August 2026), the restaurant visits (September–October 2026) and the AquaCore visit (13 August 2026); with a follow-up message from the author (November 2026) on how businesses responded to the photo. Published with the author’s agreement.
2. Lalrinsanga, P. L. et al. (2014), Yield characteristics and morphometric relationships of giant freshwater prawn, Macrobrachium rosenbergii (de Man, 1879). Aquaculture International 22: 1053–1066. Tail meat as a share of body weight in 233 prawns. doi.org
3. Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (2019), Unpacking the consumer seafood experience: a 2019 update. Taste as the main reason for never buying a species (p. 17); factors rated 8–10 out of 10 by 1,902 seafood eaters (p. 35). frdc.com.au
4. Discussion with guest speakers, CSIRO Innovate to Grow: Aquaculture programme (2026). An industry expert’s view that handling before and after harvest has the main influence on a prawn’s taste. Unpublished; the speaker is not named.
5. Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Australia’s seafood trade. An estimated 62 per cent of the edible seafood Australians eat, by weight, is imported. agriculture.gov.au
6. Umberger, W. J. (2010), Country-of-origin labelling (CoOL): a review of the relevant literature, final report for Food Standards Australia New Zealand, University of Adelaide, pp. 22–23, reporting Mueller, S. et al. (2009), Global Aquaculture Advocate. foodstandards.gov.au
7. Pascoe, S., Paredes, S., Coglan, L. (2023), Do “local” markets offer new opportunities to Australian seafood producers? Fisheries Research 263: 106691. doi.org
8. Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Seafood labelling laws have changed for hospitality businesses, business.gov.au. The Australian–Imported–Mixed labels, mandatory from 1 July 2026. business.gov.au

Part 17 of 18 · A history of the giant freshwater prawn · Previous: Part 16, The prawn that lost its name, twice · Next: Part 18 (coming soon; see the series) · SHRMP.bio’s strategy behind it: shrmp.bio/strategy.html