Blue Swimming Crab Supplier: Whole Frozen Crab and Pasteurized Crab Meat

Product overview

Blue swimming crab, also sold as flower crab or blue swimmer, is the crab behind much of the world’s pasteurized crab meat and a staple of Southeast Asian cooking in its own right. Its flattened, paddle-legged body carries sweet, fine-flaked white meat, and the mottled blue-and-white shell of the males gives the species its name. This page covers both ends of the trade: whole and cut frozen crab for kitchens that cook it in the shell, and hand-picked, pasteurized meat for crab cakes, salads, dips and soups.

The main commercial species is Portunus pelagicus, caught in shallow coastal waters and estuaries, with Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India among the main producing countries. A 2010 taxonomic revision split the former P. pelagicus complex into four species, so the name on the documents can differ by origin: Australian blue swimmer crab is now generally identified as Portunus armatus, and that is how Australian lots are named on our offers, while crab from south-east India, Sri Lanka and Thailand’s Andaman coast may be named P. reticulatus. Most crab is landed by small-scale fishers using collapsible traps and bottom-set gillnets, and some origins set minimum carapace widths or protect egg-bearing females. Each offer names the species, the country and fishing area, and the plant that cooked and packed the crab.

Whole frozen crab is supplied raw or cooked, graded by individual weight in bands such as 80⁠–⁠100 g, 100⁠–⁠150 g, 150⁠–⁠200 g and 200 g up, and also as cleaned sections or half-cut crab for curries, stir-fries and hot pot. For crab meat, the crab is steamed in the shell, cooled and picked by hand, then sorted into grades: jumbo lump, the two large unbroken muscles that drive the swimming legs; lump, made up of broken jumbo pieces and large body chunks; backfin, a mix of smaller lump and white flake; special, the white flake meat from the body; and claw, the pinkish-brown, more strongly flavored meat from the claws. The meat is packed in hermetically sealed containers, commonly 454 g (1 lb) and 227 g, pasteurized in a water bath to a validated time and temperature, and chilled straight away.

Pasteurized crab meat is a chilled product, not a shelf-stable one. Its long unopened shelf life holds only while the containers stay close to 0 °C, and no warmer than about 3 °C, from the plant to the kitchen. Buyers check the code date, the temperature record, seal integrity and any swollen containers, then grade the meat itself: shell and cartilage fragments, often screened under ultraviolet light; the share of intact pieces in jumbo grades; color, with blue or gray discoloration a known defect; free liquid; and odor. Whole frozen crab is judged on meat fill, missing legs, black spot at the joints and glaze. For a larger mangrove crab sold live or cut, see mud crab; for cold-water clusters, snow crab and our king crab and snow crab buyer’s guide.