Byrd International has become the latest member to join the National Fisheries Institute’s Crab Council, as of 3 December.
A supplier of high-quality pasteurized crabmeat, the Maryland-based company has been operating since 1995. Byrd International’s crabmeat is sourced from the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand, and is processed at one of the operation’s state-of-the-art facilities.
With the addition of Byrd International, the Council is now twenty members strong, and is representative of a majority of the imported blue swimming crab market.
“At Byrd, we take pride in the consistent quality of our crab meat,” says Tom Ruark, Byrd International’s president, in a prepared statement. “We want to guarantee our customers that the choice products we provide today will be available for years to come. We support the Crab Council’s sustainability mission and join them in funding these essential fishery improvement projects.”
The Crab Council continues to make waves as of late, having just recently hosted the first Fishery Improvement Project (FIP) conference in Bangkok, Thailand in November. The FIP conference focused on stock assessments as well as fishery governance and scientific perspectives on stock enhancement, and also delved into the Council’s new Control Document approach – “a supply chain monitoring system currently being pilot tested in Indonesia, that restricts the catch of berried and undersized crabs through auditable control points.”
“In the last few months, the Crab Council has made great strides in increasing communication and progress sharing between FIPs as well as renewing its focus on harvest and sourcing methods,” said NFI Chairman Brendan Sweeny. “Byrd International’s membership provides a boost of support from a major crab importer. The Crab Council is excited to have Byrd’s backing as we continue to grow our sustainability mission.”
