Just Google "shrimp" and "imported" and that's reason enough to forego whatever $8/lb special your local market offers.
Outside of a real fish market (i.e. one that gets their deliveries by plane on a daily basis), it's extremely difficult to find domestic shrimp from a retail outlet more than 1 month out of the year.
According to their employees, Fabian gets their shrimp straight from the fishermen on the Texas Gulf Coast early in the week, the shrimp are packed on ice into coolers (never frozen), then they drive their trucks to various points throughout the country and sell off the back of the truck everywhere from gas station parking lots to farmers markets on Fri/Sat and then head back south on Sunday. My local truck shows up once every 3-4 weeks during the season (Mar-Nov) and they tell me the shrimp was caught on Monday or Tuesday.
Considering that it isn't imported shrimp, the price isn't too bad... depending on market fluctuations, the size of the shrimp, and how much you buy, I'd say I've paid anywhere from $11-16/lb. on various occasions.
All of that said, there are two minor issues I have:
1) As most people know, shrimp are categorized by size based on a range for the number of shrimp per pound (the fewer per pound, the larger the shrimp). here is no standard for sizing at retail - one store may advertise "jumbo" as under 8 per pound, others may call jumbo 10-12 per pound, and others still may call jumbo 12-16 per pound. What Fabian advertises as "jumbo," "extra large," and "large" are typically a size below what you might be used to in typical retail outlets, and even then, they're always borderline on the low end of the range. One time I bought ten pounds of "jumbo," I forget exactly the size range given, but whatever it was, I took the shrimp home, portioned them into 1# bags (using a precision scale that I calibrate regularly), counted the shrimp in each bag, and discovered that every bag had either the bottom of, or one more than, the size range (e.g. if the range was 10-14 per pound, every bag had either 14 or 15 shrimp in them). So the shrimp run small... not sure if this is legal or just unethical, but I simply call it a necessary evil.
2) They advertise their shrimp as fresh, and I can say first hand (and will oft-repeat) that the flavor and texture is better than what you'll find anywhere outside of a high-end 5-star restaurant; however, I believe that on a couple occasions - at least - I've ended up taking home shrimp that might be more than a week old and/or were indeed frozen at one point. This may not be Fabian's fault as they're simply a distributor, not a supplier (i.e. the fishermen may sell it to them as "fresh" but that's not to say they're trying to slip one by on Fabian). Additionally, it's not as though the shrimp are rotten or spoiled (even when I thought I had older or previously-frozen product, it was still very good and I've never been sickened by the shrimp), but if you buy from Fabian regularly enough, over time, you'll be able to pick up on differences in taste, quality and texture. It might not be a bad idea to ask to smell the shrimp before you buy if you're particular about freshness... if you're overpowered by a fishy or shrimpy odor, ask when they'll be back and try again in a few weeks. Or you can do what I do and simply order much less because even still, the worst from the shrimp truck is better than the best at Red Lobster. read more
