World fisheries and aquaculture production of crab increased from 407 800 tonnes in 1970 to more than 2 million tonnes in 2005. Approximately 85-90 percent of total crab production comes from capture fisheries. Even if crab aquaculture is growing, it is mostly focused on production of freshwater crab in China. The main crab fishing countries are China, the United States and Canada, the three of them producing more than 70 percent of world crab production altogether. World crab imports totalled more than 400 000 tonnes, equivalent to nearly US$3 billion, in 2005. The top world crab markets are the United States and Japan, whose imports account for circa 60 percent of world crab trade.

The United States

Crab products in the US are generally considered a high-end foodservice item. However, recent price declines have made them more accessible to a wider portion of the consumer population. Crab is generally sold (fresh and frozen) in “sections”, or “clusters”, e.g. a group of legs and a claw from one side of a crab with the connecting shoulder still attached. They may also be marketed whole (live, fresh and frozen), in canned crabmeat form and as specialty products (“e.g. cocktail claws” and “snap-n’-eats”). The favoured species are the red king crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus), the snow or queen crab (Chionoecetes spp., in particular: C. bairdi, C. opilio and C. tanneri), the blue swimming crab (Portunus pelagicus), the blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) and the Dungeness crab (Cancer magister).

US captures of crab declined from nearly 295 000 tonnes in 1991 to 135 100 tonnes in 2005, due to the decline of the snow crab fishery in Alaskan waters. As a reaction, crab imports increased from 98 800 tonnes in 2003 to 118 500 tonnes in 2006, provisional figures for January-March 2007 suggesting a further increase from 2006 levels.

Canada (see Box) and the Russian Federation have been, historically, the main suppliers of US crab imports. While at present imports of Canadian snow crab are relatively stable, imports of king crabs from the Russian Federation increased by an annual growth rate of 40 percent between 2003 and 2006.

Red king crab from the Russian Federation is less expensive than Alaskan red king crab, and other cheaper Russian species such as the blue king crab (Paralithodes platypus) as well as P. camtschaticus are sold as “king crabs” in the USA. Therefore, the increasing supplies of crab from Russia(1) are thought to contribute to the general decline in crab prices in the US. However, despite the recent increase in the US market of Russian king crabs, the latest Russian catch statistics show that 900 tonnes of king crab were landed in the Barents’ Sea in January-March 2007 compared with 3 100 tonnes in the same period in 2006 and 800 tonnes in 2005. Compared to the three-month period in 2006, landings in 2007 fell by 71 percent. Prices of king crab from Russia are therefore expected to increase in the near future.

China is also emerging as an important supplier of crab to the US, its exports increasing by 25 percent between 2005 and 2006. Interestingly, the main product exported from China is crabmeat processed from, among the others, raw material of US origin.


Japan

In Japan, crab is marketed live, whole frozen, as frozen sections, and as crabmeat for the sushi market. It may be sold in the food service segment and, to a lesser extent, in the retail segment. The food service segment of the Japanese crab market is higher-ended than its US counterpart. It is composed of two main components: vacation and luxury restaurants (e.g. in Hokkaido) that would serve whole crab or crab sections, and sushi restaurants that would serve crabmeat. In turn, the retail segment consists primarily of department stores with the demand for crab being stronger during the festive seasons.

The Japanese crab market may be considered an oligopsony, where the buyers, represented by the major importers and the Japanese companies processing crab raw material in China (and other mainland Asian countries) are expected to set the prices.

The impact of the Japanese recession in the nineties and the early two thousands has been felt on the more expensive seafood products, including crab, its sales having dropped considerably in the past years. Imports of frozen crabs increased between 43 600 tonnes in 2003 and 47 100 tonnes in 2006, but they used to total more than 100 000 tonnes in the early nineties.

Supplies of snow and king crab from Russia now dominate the Japanese frozen crab market. However, On May 11 2007, the Russian Government published fisheries regulations for the Far Eastern fishing area, incorporating a provision to ban the shipments of live crab out of Russia's exclusive economic zone. Informed sources believe that Moscow is trying to reinforce its resource conservation and prevent illegal fishing activities. According to the Fisheries Agency of Japan, the live crab export ban may also influence the domestic market of frozen crab through increasing export substitution and price fluctuations.

Outlook

The collapse of the Alaskan snow crab fishery, the uncertainties of the Russian fishery and the conservation concerns caused by the Canadian snow crab fishery combine to make stakeholders wonder about the future of crab. Aquaculture does not seem to be a viable alternative for the time being, therefore, in order to avoid resource depletion, it would be necessary to implement crab conservation and management measures strictly in all the main fishing areas. On the market side, declining supplies and price increases are foreseen in the near future.

By Camillo Catarci
FAO GLOBEFISH 2007

Footnote

(1) The king crab (and the snow crab) are alien species in Russian waters. Environmentalists and some local fishers see alien crabs as a problem because of their voracity and their fertility. Other fishers and policy-makers see them more positively due to the high prices and appreciation in international markets, hence the introduction of fishing quotas.