Frozen shrimp product forms, from HOSO to cooked

A shrimp product form says which parts of the animal are still on the frozen piece: the head, the shell, the vein and the tail. Nine forms cover almost all export trade, from HOSO (nothing removed) to cooked PD (head, shell and vein removed, then cooked). Each step takes weight off the piece and adds labour, so the form moves the yield, the count and the price as much as the size grade does.

Form	Head	Shell	Vein	Tail	Typical yield from HOSO	Count unit	Main markets
HOSO, head on shell on	On	On	In	On	100 percent	Per kg	China, Korea, EU wholesale, Asian retail
HLSO, headless shell on	Off	On	In	On	62 to 68 percent	Per lb	US, Japan (black tiger blocks), EU
EZ peel	Off	On, cut along the back	Out	On	60 to 66 percent	Per lb	US retail and foodservice
PUD, peeled undeveined	Off	Off	In	Off	52 to 58 percent	Per lb	Further processing, small counts, Asia
PD, peeled and deveined	Off	Off	Out	Off	50 to 56 percent	Per lb	US and EU retail, foodservice
PDTO, peeled deveined tail on	Off	Off except last segment	Out	On	52 to 58 percent	Per lb	Foodservice, cocktail rings, skewers
Butterfly	Off	Off except last segment	Out, deep cut	On	50 to 56 percent	Per lb	Breaded, tempura, restaurant plating
Nobashi	Off	Off except last segment	Out	On	50 to 56 percent	Pieces per tray, by length	Japan tempura and ebi fry
Cooked (CHOSO, CPD, CPDTO)	As the raw form	As the raw form	As the raw form	As the raw form	42 to 50 percent for cooked PD	Per lb, counted after cooking	US and EU retail, salads, sushi

Yield figures are typical working ranges, not constants. They move with species, size, moult stage, season and how a plant sets its peeling and deveining line.

How the forms relate

Read the table as a tree, not a list. HOSO is the raw material for everything. HLSO is the first branch: once the head is off, the shrimp goes either to shell-on forms (HLSO, EZ peel) or to peeled forms. Peeled forms split again by vein (PUD or PD) and by tail (PD or PDTO). Butterfly and nobashi are PDTO with an extra cut or stretch. Cooked forms are any of the above put through a cooker and chiller.

Three consequences matter in a purchase.

The count belongs to the form in the carton. A PD 26/30 is 26 to 30 peeled pieces per pound, not peeled from HLSO 26/30. Raw HLSO 21/25 typically ends up near 26/30 once peeled. The count chart has the full conversion by form.

Every form after HLSO is labour. Peeling, deveining, tail work, cutting and stretching are mostly done by hand on Vietnamese lines, often with machine assistance for peeling small counts. Labour is priced into the form, not the species.

Cooked forms carry their own controls. A cooked line needs a validated cook step, a chiller and a separation between raw and cooked areas. Not every plant that packs good raw PD runs cooked product daily.

Shell-on forms

HOSO: head on, shell on

The whole animal, frozen. HOSO is graded per kilogram, commonly in bands such as 30/40, 40/50 and 60/70 pieces per kg. It is packed as frozen blocks (often 6 x 2 kg in a carton) or IQF. The head carries the digestive gland, so HOSO shows quality faults first: black or loose heads, head drop and melanosis. Buyers in China, Korea, Spain and Asian wholesale use HOSO because the head is part of the dish and a whole animal shows freshness.

HLSO: headless, shell on

The head is removed by hand at the plant, usually by twisting it off at the carapace joint. HLSO keeps the shell, so the meat is protected in storage and thaws without drying. It is the trade baseline: black tiger HLSO blocks for Japan and vannamei HLSO for US and EU repackers. A clean head removal leaves no hanging membrane or dark digestive matter on the first segment. Shell integrity, meaning no broken or missing shell segments, is the main HLSO quality line.

EZ peel: shell on, cut and deveined

HLSO with a cut along the back through the shell, and the vein removed through that cut. The shell stays on through cooking and the consumer slips it off. It is a US retail and foodservice format, sold raw for boiling and grilling. The cut depth is set by the buyer: shallow enough that the piece stays whole, deep enough that the vein comes out cleanly.

Peeled forms

PUD: peeled, undeveined

All shell segments and the tail removed, vein left in. PUD is mostly small counts (71/90 and smaller), used in fried rice, dumplings, soups and further processing, where deveining each piece costs more than it is worth. Some buyers accept a pulled vein, removed through the head end without a cut, and still call it PUD. Write “vein in” or “vein pulled” to avoid the argument.

PD: peeled and deveined, tail off

Fully peeled, tail removed, vein out through a shallow cut along the back. PD is the standard retail bag and salad form. The wording varies: PD, P&D, PND and “peeled and deveined tail off” mean the same thing in most offers, but some buyers use P&D for both tail-on and tail-off. Always add “tail off”. The quality lines are vein residue (a share of pieces with vein left), broken pieces and a clean cut that does not split the piece.

PDTO: peeled, deveined, tail on

Peeled except for the last shell segment and the tail fan, deveined. PDTO is the presentation form for cocktail rings, skewers, grilling and plated foodservice. The tail gives the diner a handle and makes the piece look larger on the plate. See the PDTO specification for the tail and segment rule.

Cut and stretched forms

Butterfly

PDTO with a deep cut along the back so the piece opens flat. Butterfly is the base for breaded and tempura products and for restaurant dishes where the shrimp should lie flat and cook evenly. Some programmes specify “western style”, a butterfly cut through most of the thickness, and others “round”, a shallow cut that keeps the piece curled. For coated products see breaded and tempura shrimp.

Nobashi

PDTO that has been cut on the underside and pressed to straighten it, so it fries straight for tempura and ebi fry. Nobashi is sold by length and pieces per tray rather than by a per pound count, and is almost entirely a Japan business. The detailed process is in how nobashi shrimp is made. Sushi ebi, a cooked and butterflied shrimp, is a separate product, see sushi ebi specs.

Cooked forms

Any raw form can be cooked. The common ones are cooked HOSO (for Spain and Asian retail), CPD (cooked, peeled, deveined, tail off) and CPDTO or CPTO (cooked, peeled, tail on, the cocktail form). Three lines differ from raw specs:

Spec line	Raw form	Cooked form
Count	Counted raw	Counted after cooking, so the raw input is a larger grade
Yield	From HOSO or HLSO	Cook yield from raw input, typically 80 to 90 percent for unsoaked PD
Food safety	Raw for cooking	Ready to eat: pathogen controls, often Listeria testing set by the buyer
Colour	Raw colour score	Cooked colour score after the cook step

The cook step and its controls are covered in cooked shrimp processing.

Freezing and treatment are separate fields

Product form says what is on the piece. It does not say how it was frozen or treated. Any form can come as IQF (pieces frozen separately), semi-IQF or block, and any form can be untreated, phosphate treated or treated with a non-phosphate agent. These are separate lines in a spec. See IQF, semi-IQF and block frozen shrimp.

Writing the form in a request

Write species, form, tail, vein, count and freezing together, in that order: “vannamei PDTO, tail on, deveined by back cut, 21/25 per lb, IQF”. Add glaze and pack, see the count chart for the weight basis. The older processing forms guide covers value-add lines built on these forms.

Send the line through the request form and we match it with Vietnamese processors that run that form.