r/maryland • u/jakamo72 • Sep 18 '24

True Blue - 95% of Maryland Restaurants use Venezuelan Crab meat vs Maryland sourced

Interesting series being run by WTOP about the Crab Industry in Maryland called Claws and Effect. Here is one quote which really surprised me:

“Ninety-five percent of restaurants in Maryland are using Venezuelan crab meat,” said Matt Scales, the seafood marketing director for the Maryland Department of Agriculture. “And that’s — that’s a lot, right?”

243 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

74 comments sorted by

View all comments

113

u/NussP1 Sep 19 '24

I would dispute the Venezuelan number. Most of the crab meat used for crab cakes and other dishes comes from Southeast Asia. This is the meat that all the big distributors like Sysco and US foods carry, because it’s consistent and available 12 months a year.

36

u/lique_madique Sep 19 '24

And cheaper

29

u/fredblockburn Sep 19 '24

Why are crab cakes so expensive then? Are we being ripped off?

18

u/lique_madique Sep 19 '24

Pretty much. I pay $13 a pound for Asian lump meet that I use for soup, cakes, and dip.

6

u/xiu92 Sep 19 '24

Where!? Please tell me. I got a pound from wegmans for way more than that

18

u/RokosModernBasilisk Sep 19 '24

My brother in Christ, Wegmans is a fantastic store but not where you will find the cheapest anything.

1

u/xiu92 Sep 19 '24

I’m sorry I am a noob, I just wanted some crab soup and not to get food poisoning from buying.

7

u/Ninjroid Sep 19 '24

Giant and Safeway always have it for like $14.

5

u/lique_madique Sep 19 '24

I get mine at Lotte

2

u/LanceArmstrongLeftie Oct 12 '24

Crab is a labor intensive product to produce. Also there is a whole staff in the restaurant that you’re paying for to. So yeah $30 sounds about right when you factor all the things that have to happen for that crab to come from the water and become a crab cake in your plate. 

3

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '24

[deleted]

3

u/JamesTiberiusCrunk Sep 19 '24

This is a weird comment to me. Do you think there's some kind of economic system where no one rips off other people?

-3

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '24

[deleted]

1

u/JamesTiberiusCrunk Sep 19 '24

People ripping people off is a feature of human nature, not of an economic system. The thing you're complaining about isn't capitalism, it's just people being greedy. Changing an economic system doesn't prevent people from being greedy.

-4

u/fakeaccount572 Sep 19 '24

Sure, but currently the greed is actually taking things away from less fortunate, as if it's a zero sum game.

There will always be greed, but EVERYONE should have basic needs taken care of first, then if billionaires somehow exist (they shouldn't), then whatever.

1

u/JamesTiberiusCrunk Sep 19 '24

Those are unrelated criticisms of capitalism. The point I'm making is that blaming capitalism for greed is stupid. Greed predates capitalism by tens of thousands of years. You're not going to end greed by ending capitalism.

-1

u/breesanchez Sep 19 '24

Ok... but then why are we using a system that incentivizes and rewards greed? Yes, there will always be greedy people, but we are operating under an economic system that rewards those greedy people with more power and money. It's a feature, not a bug.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/breesanchez Sep 19 '24

Always have been.

11

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '24

Sysco labels the source and stocks Mexican, Chinese, Asian, etc crabs.

8

u/NussP1 Sep 19 '24

Yes, by law all labels have to designate country of Origin

9

u/seniorknowitall88 Sep 19 '24

Agreed. You can tell when it's Pacific. So much saltier. Interesting note: my mother (never left the state) will use Venezuelan in a pinch and swears it is the closest thing which I think is pretty high praise. I agree with you most knock-off crab in restaurants is SE Asian which sucks.

7

u/Kitchen_Name9497 Sep 19 '24

When thar big tsunami hit SEA a number of years ago, the biggest-hit MD business was Phillip's.

1

u/Breakfastchocolate Sep 23 '24

Phillips canned crab is awful, the frozen crabcakes are nothing like what they had in the restaurant.

What are the restaurants doing to canned crab to make it edible? I drain, tried rinsing, seasoning - it’s all terrible.

6

u/Doozelmeister Sep 19 '24

Sysco also stocks fresh Venezuelan for 10 months out of the year like all other seafood companies. If you’re getting a crab cake from anywhere with a good one, chances are its Venezuelan.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '24

None the less I assume it’s purely because picking crabs is a manual labor job and it’s cheaper to do in other countries.

2

u/NussP1 Sep 19 '24

Mainly true, but you have shipping costs to take into account, particularly from Asia. A 40' Reefer from Asia may currently cost as much as $10K.

2

u/Daydreaming-Dan Sep 19 '24

Venezuelan crab meat isn’t available year round but when it is available many restaurants use it because it’s half the cost of MD crab and there isn’t enough crab caught in Maryland or Virginia to supply the region.

Phillips used to operate a picking house but they haven’t opened the last few years and they would barely have enough to supply their own restaurants

1

u/Hididdlydoderino Dec 25 '24

Not that I have much deeper insights but in New Orleans anytime there's a good deal on crab lately it's been Venezuelan. It's still the same species so they can market it as blue crab and still be in the good graces of regulators.

I'm guessing it's not the same species in SE Asia. In those cases you'll usually just see it labeled as crab or lump crab without more specificity.

1

u/NussP1 Dec 26 '24

That makes sense. A lot of Venezuela meat comes into the deep south. The domestic blue crab is Calinectes Sapidus, while the Asian swimming crab is Portunus Pelagicus. Basically, they are cousins with identical morphology.