Snow Crab: export from Canada to ASEAN

Snow crab is sold predominantly as cooked frozen sections and as picked meat, and the grade is by size band. Section grading determines presentation and price, and buyers supplying foodservice generally want a tighter band than buyers supplying processing.

The attribute to interrogate is glaze. Glazing protects frozen product but it is water, and a price per kilogram that does not state the glaze percentage is not comparable to one that does. Net weight after glaze is the number that matters, and it should be a contract term.

Canadian snow crab comes primarily from Newfoundland and the Gulf, in a fishery that runs on a defined season with quotas set annually. That makes supply genuinely variable year to year in a way farmed products are not, and buyers building continuous programmes should expect to contract early in the season rather than assume availability.

Specify size band, cooked or raw, section or meat, and the glaze percentage. Those four define the product.