Alaska crab buyers and suppliers are wondering what to make of this season. They’ve already seen record high prices for king crab caused by a nearly 50 percent reduction in quota coupled with a lack of snow crab at the start of the 2012 season due to some of the worst ice conditions in decades.
Larger-sized kings were selling in the mid-USD 9 range two years ago, and between USD 15 and USD 16 last year. This year, prices topped USD 20 a pound all season, with the latest price reports showing 6- to 9-count legs and claws selling between USD 24.75 and USD 25.25 a pound. Compounding the problem for U.S. buyers is the fact that most of the king crab was sent to Japan, forcing those that want crab having to decide if it’s worth the cost.
“I’ve never seen it like this in my life,” said one meat and seafood buyer for group of southeastern U.S. restaurants. “I used to go to a primary processor, negotiate a deal and take a huge shipment. When you’re at USD 9 you can take 60,000 pounds, but when you’re at USD 25 a couple thousand pounds is fine. We certainly have smaller purchasing amounts on our end.”
King crab on his restaurants’ menus now is listed as “market price,” but demand is robust. “You can come in and spend USD 40, USD 45 a pound, that is probably a pretty real number in a restaurant,” he said. “The price can get kind of scary … but the consumer is still out there, so why not let them have a great experience?”
While this buyer used to be skittish about buying Russian crab, his attitude has changed with the lessened availability and processing improvements by Russian suppliers. “So when I’m getting stuff out of Russia, I’ll check the U.S. Department of Commerce reports to make sure,” he said, adding that they help him more precisely determine the meat yields in the boxes. “When you’re buying this high, a little bit of yield makes a big difference.”
Record high prices are not necessarily good for sellers, either, says one Alaska crab supplier who said the amount of king clusters he bought this past season dropped 60 percent because of the quota cut that reduced the catch from 14 million pounds to 7.8 million pounds.
“I don’t think anybody was happy with the prices. Japan, they’re not happy, I don’t think the processors were, I don’t think the domestic market likes what’s happening,” said the seller. “I don’t really think the really smart, good professional crab fishermen were happy. When that happens, you start losing market share or getting to the point where restaurants will take king crab off the menu, find something else.”
It’s not much better with snow crab. The season started in January, but the tremendous amount of ice in the Bering Sea has kept many boats tied up in port into the early part of February, and this created problems throughout the supply chain, the seller says. Before the ice came down, the big Alaska processors wanted as much opilio as they could get so they could ship it to Japan and China.
“They were almost totally out of crab so they were hurrying to get crab ASAP to have product,” he said. “Now with the ice, that’s really slowed up. Today, there’s not a lot of guys fishing and not a lot of crab coming in. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Adding to the intrigue is what he said is a glut of opilio left over from the last Canadian season, and this was anticipated to lead to a price decline as buyers and sellers gathered at the International Boston Seafood Show in mid-March, which is when Canadian suppliers usually negotiate their prices for the upcoming season.
The Alaska processors “wanted to get as much crab into Japan before Boston started,” said the buyer. “What I’ve heard is there’s still a pretty big inventory in Canada. I’m not the expert, but from everything I know, there could be a price correction coming, lower prices.”
Recent reports had opilio crab clusters from Alaska priced between USD 5.25 and USD 5.65 a pound, while the snow crab from Canada was going for between USD 4.65 and USD 6.30 a pound, depending on size.
