WASHINGTON – April 1, also known as April Fools’ Day, marks the beginning of the blue crab harvest in Maryland, but when it comes to the state’s signature shellfish, it appears the joke is on diners.
A new report shows that nearly 40 percent of the crab cakes purchased at local restaurants last year were prepared with imported and perhaps illegally caught crabmeat instead of the more expensive Chesapeake blue crabs that were advertised.
Following up its previous fraud reports on fish and shrimp, which also showed widespread consumer deception, advocacy group Oceana has released a report that details the bad news for blue crabs: Of 90 crab cake samples gathered at 86 restaurants in the Chesapeake region, 38 percent were mislabeled. The samples came from all types of eateries, from a catering truck to “very, very high-end” restaurants, said Kimberly Warner, a senior scientist at Oceana and the report’s author.
Oceana doesn’t name locations because it can’t identify where along the supply chain the fraud occurred.
Oceana selected only establishments that promoted local, regional or Maryland crab on its menus, whether online or in the restaurant. If a server later acknowledged that the kitchen had changed its source of crabmeat to a region outside the Chesapeake, the advocacy group did not consider that fraud. This explains why only 38 percent of the samples were considered “mislabeled” when, in fact, 48 percent of the crab cakes were prepared with swimming crab species from the Indo-Pacific region or from the Mexican Pacific coast, some not common enough to be identified in the Food and Drug Administration’s official seafood list, Warner noted.
The fraud varied widely by locale, with 9 of 19 (or 47 percent) samples mislabeled in Annapolis, Maryland, and 6 out of 13 (46 percent) mislabeled in Baltimore, but only 1 of 11 (9 percent) on the Maryland Eastern Shore. In the Washington area, 12 out of 31 samples (39 percent) were mislabeled.
It’s possible the amount of fraud is even higher, Warner said. The DNA tests could identify only the species of the crab, not where they were caught. Because blue crabs can be found from Nova Scotia to Argentina, Oceana could not determine whether those in a crab cake were from the Chesapeake or some far-flung location.
“It’s disappointing but not shocking to find restaurants serving imported crabmeat,” said Steve Vilnit, director of fisheries marketing at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “It’s a less expensive product that is consistent throughout the year, and that makes it appealing to some chefs.”
The high rate of mislabeled crabmeat has ripple effects, Warner said. It contributes to illegal fisheries; according to one report, up to 32 percent of wild-caught seafood imported to the United States comes from illegal or unregulated fisheries. Such mislabeling also undermines a diner’s choice to support local Maryland crabbers, which sold $49 million worth of blue crabs in 2013, five times more than the next highest-selling seafood.
“The local industry can’t possibly survive when people think they’re supporting it, and they’re not,” Vilnit said.
The rate of fraud uncovered could also be the result of a poor year for Chesapeake blue crabs. The 2014 season was a tough one for watermen, said Jack Brooks, co-owner of the J.M. Clayton Seafood Company, a processing plant in Cambridge, Maryland. Brooks said last season’s blue crab harvest was lower than in previous years, and the price that crabbers had to ask was higher. (State figures for blue crab landings and values for the 2014 season have not been released.) Such conditions could entice people up and down the supply chain to mislead distributors, chefs and consumers.
Some potentially good news was released at last month’s Seafood Expo North America in Boston: A presidential task force on combating illegal fishing and seafood fraud released its action plan on March 15. It calls for a traceability program to track seafood from harvest to commercial outlet. For now, Warner said, the government expects to focus on seafood with a high risk of fraud. That could include Maryland’s prized blue crab.
Not that creating such a program would be easy for blue crabs.
“It would be a daunting task right now,” said Vilnit of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “Major changes would have to be made in the fishery to accomplish these goals.”
