Shrimp are the most numerous farmed animal by count, yet most are processed alive with no stunning, raising significant welfare concerns given emerging evidence of crustacean sentience.
Shrimp represent the largest gap between the scale of animal use and the attention given to their welfare. Billions of shrimp are processed alive annually, typically by immersion in ice or boiling water — methods that, for sentient animals, would cause significant suffering. The legal recognition of decapod crustacean sentience in the UK, following the London School of Economics review commissioned by the government, has catalysed development of humane slaughter methods. The challenge is scaling these methods to the enormous volumes processed globally in diverse production systems.