Frozen Razor Clam Supplier: Whole Shell, Half-Shell and Meat

Product overview

Razor clams are long, narrow bivalves that live upright in burrows in sand or mud and are dug, raked or dredged rather than gathered from the surface. Their shells are thin and brittle and gape at both ends, so the animal can never seal itself completely, and that shapes how frozen product has to be handled: purging before processing, fast freezing to protect the exposed meat, and packing that keeps fragile shells from cracking in the carton. On the plate they are prized for sweet, tender meat that needs only moments on a hot griddle.

The volume species is the constricted or Chinese razor clam (Sinonovacula constricta), farmed on a large scale on the coastal mudflats of eastern China, with smaller production in Korea. Wild Solen species, slimmer and straighter, are harvested along Asian coasts including Indonesia. European buyers often ask for Ensis razor clams, the navajas of Spanish menus, from the North-East Atlantic and from South America, where Ensis macha is fished off Chile and Argentina. A constricted razor clam and an Ensis differ in size, shape and the dishes they suit, so the species is named on every offer and on the carton.

Whole razor clams are frozen raw in the shell, IQF or vacuum-packed on trays, or cooked briefly first so that the shells open and the meat sets. Half-shell product has one valve removed and the meat left on the other, laid in interleaved trays for grilling with garlic, butter or breadcrumbs. Shucked meat is frozen raw or cooked, IQF or in blocks, for stir-fries, soups, fried rice and processing. In-shell clams are graded by shell length in bands such as 5⁠–⁠7, 7⁠–⁠9, 9⁠–⁠12 and 12⁠–⁠15 cm, with 15 cm and over for the largest Ensis, or by pieces per kilogram, and meat by count per kilogram. Checks on thawed samples cover cracked and broken shells, sand in the gut and siphon, meat fill, odor and glaze.

Like other filter-feeding bivalves, razor clams can concentrate marine biotoxins and take up bacteria and viruses from their growing water, and some razor clam fisheries are known for closures caused by domoic acid, the toxin behind amnesic shellfish poisoning. Each lot therefore comes from a classified harvest area with monitoring records, and testing for the PSP, ASP and DSP groups and microbiology is arranged to your market’s limits, as described under export quality assurance. For pasta and steamed dishes, round clams are listed under frozen clams, and shelf-stable razor clam meat for soups and congee under dried razor clams.