After many delays, some of the Bay Area’s commercial fishing boats began arriving Wednesday night at San Francisco’s Pier 45 and other ports to start unloading Dungeness crab. But the beloved crustacean may not be widely available in stores until this weekend due to a limited supply in the water, and prices are likely to rise quickly due to high demand.
After seafood supplier Water2Table put its first batch of crab up for sale on the company’s website, all 1,000 pounds sold out in about 40 minutes, according to owner Joe Conte. The company started out selling live crab for $7 per pound and cooked versions for $16 per crab.
“It won’t be much. I’ll tell ya. It looks like the volume is really low,” said Bodega Bay commercial fisherman Dick Ogg on Wednesday evening as he was about to retrieve traps near Drake’s Bay in Point Reyes National Seashore. “But we’ll work as hard as we can and do what we can.”
The delays that pushed the season opening far past its traditional mid-November debut were first due to the presence of endangered whales in fishing zones and then because of ongoing price negotiations between fishers and wholesale buyers. After they finally settled on a price last week, huge swells were rocking the coast, making fishing more difficult. Fishers say the limited amount of crab in local waters is also part of a natural cycle.
“Fishermen were pulling up empty pots today,” said Adrian Hoffman, co-owner of seafood delivery company Four Star Seafood and San Francisco fish market Billingsgate, on Wednesday. “Might just be the weather but doesn't bode well.”
Some deliveries were made Thursday to companies like Hoffman’s with more direct relationships with fishing boats or that only sell live crab, since it takes longer for cooked crab to make it to seafood counters. The long wait, which prevented home cooks from having their traditional crab feeds over the holidays, have made demand high, retailers say.
“I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of correspondence we’ve gotten asking when crab will come,” said Conte of Water2Table, which already sold out of hundreds of pounds. “The whole public is just crazy for them.”
At Alioto-Lazio Fish Co. at Fisherman’s Wharf, usually one of the first to sell live crab, co-owner Angela Cincotta said Thursday morning that they weren’t sure when they would begin selling them.
“We’ve given up making predictions because it frustrates everyone,” she said. “We’ve gotten a lot of backlash from people. They’re looking for something that’s finally good.”
John Burnett, a crab fisher and San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association President, said crabbers began dropping their gear Monday and let them set two days before beginning to pull them up on Wednesday. The smaller boats came back Wednesday evening, while some larger boats stayed out longer to fill up.
The small amount of crab that was expected to be available this year, as well as a fire that destroyed many local crab fishers’ equipment this summer at a warehouse at Pier 45, is keeping some commercial crab fishermen and women from going fishing, according to a longtime local fishermen who didn’t want his name used.
“All my crab gear burned up and I was too close to retirement to spend $150 grand on crab gear,” he said.
Barnett said home cooks should buy up the crustaceans soon for their crab feasts, as the price will likely go up after the initial release into stores. The price at the dock was originally settled at around $3 a pound, which would make the price at major supermarkets twice that or around $6 per pound. However, the dock price was already going up Thursday with the high demand, Hoffman said.
That said, Barnett said there’s an upside to fewer crabs: you end up with heavy, meaty ones.
“I think it’s going to be a really good quality of crab, because generally when there aren’t a lot of crabs they aren’t fighting for food,” he said. “The public should get a really good product but get it quick because that price is going to go up.”
Tara Duggan is The San Francisco Chronicle’s assistant food editor. Email: tduggan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @taraduggan
The Link LonkJanuary 15, 2021 at 01:43AM
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Dungeness crab is coming to Bay Area markets, but supply is low — and crabs are selling out quickly - San Francisco Chronicle
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