Safe and SustainableVirginia Sea Grant Seafood

Sea Grant research advances “I’ve worked with scientists for years and years, sustainable red crab fishery but it’s never been like this... ” Red crab has the potential to occupy a niche as an upscale, live- —Captain Jon Williams market product, and the fishery is the first on the East Coast of the U.S. to obtain Marine Stewardship Council sustainability certification. Since 1996, Captain Jon Williams of Benthic Fishing Corp. a new Virginia fishery had made a business out of capturing red crab at Norfolk Can- yon off the mid-Atlantic shoreline. But until recently, few Vir- • $1 million in red crab landings were re- ported in Newport News in 2008, in- ginians had heard of the red crab, in part because no one was creased from $0 in 2005. landing them here. Instead, Williams and his boats would take their catch directly to Massachusetts. From there, most of their • Protocols could help develop a $4million crabs would proceed to Canadian processing houses and even- live market for red crab, with much of tual sale to Red Lobster as “generic crab meat.” the distribution from Virginia. When Williams started landing his catch at Newport News • 20-25% of all red crab fishery landings in 2006, he started to see the potential to market red crab in occur at Newport News, as of 2008. Virginia. Red crab is sweeter than snow crab, with a texture much like Dungeness. To market the crabs outside the ge- supporting sustainability neric market, Williams would need to develop a way to hold live red crabs on shore as well as appropriate cooking, packag- On September 3, 2009, the red crab fish- ery was certified Sustainable by the Marine ing, and processing protocols. Stewardship Coucil. To help him work out these important details, Williams as- sembled a team of Virginia Sea Grant extension agents from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and Virginia Tech’s Seafood Agricultural Research and Extension Center in partnership (VSAREC). Continued... Williams credits the Sea Grant staff at VSAREC and VIMS for their help turning the red crab into a new product to sell out of Virginia. “Working with this team has been great. I’ve worked with scientists for years and years, but it’s never been like this. adapted from Many watermen from New England look at marine biologists and scientists as more like the enemy than the advocate. But “From deadliest catch to sustainable catch” when I called the folks in Virginia, they said, ‘come on in and by Phil Marsosudiro let’s see what we can do.’ And they’re moving us forward much, much faster than I could have ever done on my own.” Virginia Marine Resource Bulletin One challenge of taking a deep water crab to the live market is (Fall/Winter 2008) keeping them alive and healthy. “We have to develop entirely new ways for managing their water chemistry: controlling for tem- perature, ammonia concentrations, pH, and many other factors,” says Bob Fisher, Virginia Sea Grant Fisheries Specialist at VIMS. At VSAREC, Drs. Dan Kauffman and Mike Jahncke are as- sisting with the development of appropriate cooking, packaging, and processing protocols. Much of that work is being done at Casey’s Seafood in Newport News. Kauffman explains “trials are being conducted in the picking houses, comparing boiled and steamed red crab to see what hand-picked yields are obtained. Structurally, red crab is very different from the blue crab they’ve been used to, so this is no small challenge. Shelf-life tests and bacteria counts are being done in the lab. We’re also looking at new packaging with wrappers that breathe so that the red crabs go to market fresh, or else with a barrier film that allows for pasteurizing.” The million dollar question is the market price. As Fisher puts it, “We don’t think of the red crab as a substitute for the blue crab. The red crab can occupy a niche all its own.” With proper marketing and a bit of luck, Williams thinks that Photos © Dan Kauffman/VASG. Top: the red crab may emerge as a viable product in the current sea- Captain Jon Williams. food market.