The news overview this summer of US crabs hinges literary on a year-on-year continual drop in prices. Not just in the US, but in Canada too, where the regulators set a minimum wharf or wholesale price of $2.20 a pound and no less than $5.9 a pound for export prices back in May, 2023. The aim is to prevent further price declines that hurt fishermen.

Between February 2022 and the same period in 2023, the retail price of crabs plummeted by more than half, from $19.50 a pound to $7.50, by -60%.

In other words, with as little as  $17, you can currently buy a kilo of live crabs in the US. It is a big leap down, as the lowest market price for the prized crustacean in 2021 was as high as $40 a kilo or $19.5 a pound.

However, not all is rosy for the dining out consumer, as cooked crab prices vary. The following round up of prepared crabs at restaurants in two different parts of the U.S. reveals varied pricing results.

Maryland’s seafood summer fest sees high prices, ebbing demand

In Maryland, the summer crab fest was back in July and the prices did not budge from the 2022 highs.

Unlike fresh crabs which sell per piece or in small units, steamed crabs in Baltimore restaurants were selling by the bushel this summer. The State of Maryland Fisheries department classifies 0.5 bushels as equivalent to 20 pounds of large-sized crabs. This converts to between 23 to 25 kg per bushel. At a price of $429 a bushel in the State’s seafood restaurants, this converts to $17.16 a kilo. 

This markup put off consumers, who sensed that restaurants were capitalising on the summer festival where Maryland families consume steamed crabs by the hordes.

At other premium seafood locales such as Jimmy’s Famous Seafood in Baltimore, a lobster bushel was going for a higher price of $540.

California prices steady for prepared and live crabs

In California, customers of cooked crabs are enjoying a better respite than their counterparts in Maryland. In the first quarter of 2023, cooked crab costs $15 a pound, and live crab at $9 a pound. This was the lowest price to date for the Dungeness crab. 

The overall 60 percent drop in crab prices in 2023 in the United States does not apply to just the generally cheap-priced Dungeness types but also for the premium snow crabs. In 2022, the price for the latter plummeted by 33% to settle at $17.50 a pound from the 2021 equivalent.

Ranging between $17 and $34, a kg, prices of crabs are expected to continue on a downward swing late into the year as supplies increase. The fall crab season, the primary one in the United States, is slated to start in October and will last until January next year.