Mud Crab Supplier: Live, Whole Frozen, Half-Cut and Sections

Product overview

Mud crab is the heavyweight of the Asian crab trade: a thick-shelled mangrove crab with massive claws and dense, sweet meat, bought live by Chinese restaurants for steaming and by Singaporean and Malaysian kitchens for chili and black pepper crab, and frozen in cut form for curries and stir-fries from South Asia to the Gulf. So much of its value depends on condition that a mud crab offer has to state not only species and size but also sex, fill and, for live crab, how the animals will travel.

Three of the four Scylla species make up most of the trade. Scylla serrata, the giant mud crab, ranges most widely and grows largest, occurring from East Africa across the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific and Australia. S. paramamosain, the green mud crab, dominates in southern China and Vietnam and is the main farmed species there, while S. olivacea, the orange mud crab, is common in the mangroves of Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia and is commonly used for farmed soft-shell crab. Supply comes from wild catch with traps, baited lines and lift nets, and from pond grow-out and fattening, where wild-caught juveniles or empty post-molt crabs are held until they fill. Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam and Thailand are among the exporting countries, and every offer states the species, the country and whether the crab is wild-caught or pond-raised.

Live mud crab is graded by individual weight, typically in bands such as 200⁠–⁠300 g, 300⁠–⁠500 g and 500 g up, and then by sex and condition. Males are sold for meat and claw size, females with ripe orange roe fetch a premium as roe crab in Chinese markets, and full, hard-shelled crabs are separated from light, recently molted ones that carry far less meat. Live crabs travel with claws and legs tied, in ventilated boxes kept cool and damp, but tropical mud crab is harmed by the near-freezing temperatures used for cold-water crustaceans, so the packing temperature and door-to-door time are agreed with the packer before booking. Frozen formats include whole crab, raw or cooked; half-cut crab, split through the body and cleaned of gills; and sections of body with legs attached, each blast-frozen and glazed.

Buyers judge live crab on vigor, with eyes and mouthparts responsive and legs intact, and on fill: a full crab’s underside and leg joints feel hard and unyielding under thumb pressure. Frozen mud crab is checked for meat fill, black spot at the cut edges, dehydration and glaze, and half-cut product should show clean cuts with no gill or viscera left behind. Live crab moves mainly to China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, while frozen cut crab reaches restaurant and retail buyers further afield. For a smaller crab and for pasteurized meat, see blue swimming crab, and for cold-water legs and clusters, king crab; our live abalone page describes the transit planning applied to every live consignment.