US crab import companies are banding together in a coalition to protect the sustainability of the blue swimming crab and fund fishery improvement efforts in Indonesia, the Phillipines and Vietnam.
The National Fisheries Institute’s (NFI) Crab Council has been leading the way in efforts to protect the species by implementing measures to ensure that its 16 participating members include a minimum size in its sourcing policies and to limit the purchase of egg bearing female crabs.
Gavin Gibbons from the NFI said to World Fishing:“The NFI Crab Council is an important seafood sustainability proto type that is paying dividends. This is a case where companies took a long look at lessons learned by the domestic crab industry in the US’s Chesapeake Bay and said we need to get together as a group and work towards making sure that doesn’t happen elsewhere in the world.”
He added: “These are competitors who weren’t taking cues from environmental organisations or regulators but who got together on their own and said let’s take the lead in finding partners and funding fisheries improvement work.”
Blue swimming crab sustainability in the Chesapeake area is important because today more than 76% is imported - worrying news considering in 1995 only 24% of the crab consumed in the US was imported.
This shift is due in part to the decline in US stock of the native species and the availability and consumer acceptance of crab products from the Asia.
The latest recruits to the NFI Crab Council are Bonamar Corporation, Mazzetta Company, Stavis Foods and Quirch Foods.
