Dungeness shortage has prices soaring
By all accounts, the quality of this year’s Dungeness crab has been particularly good — meaty and delicious. But due to limited supply, prices have been steadily rising since the season opened Nov. 15 and are expected to continue to climb over Christmas and New Year’s Eve, fishermen and seafood sellers say.
“It’s changing by the hour,” said Angela Cincotta of Alioto-Lazio Fish Co. at Fisherman’s Wharf, which has raised its prices by $4 to $5 per pound since its original price of $6 per pound. “Half the fleet appears to have packed in and are quitting.”
At the beginning of the season, Bay Area shoppers could find cooked crab for around $5.99 to $6.99 a pound, but as of Wednesday, supermarkets and seafood stores were selling it for anywhere from
$7.99 to $10.99 a pound, and it’s expected to go up.
There are two reasons for the limited supply. Fishermen report that the overall number of Dungeness crab in local waters has been low due to natural cycles. Furthermore, the region from Point Arena (Mendocino County) south to Morro Bay (San Luis Obispo County) is the only part of the West Coast currently open.
The California commercial fishery north of Point Arena, which normally opens Dec. 1, has been delayed until at least Dec. 31, because crustaceans in those regions are not meaty enough. Oregon and Washington fisheries have experienced similar delays.
“If the whole coast was open, the price wouldn’t go up like it is now. You’d be getting crabs from Oregon and Washington,” said Jim Caito, president of Caito Fisheries in San Francisco and Fort Bragg. But right now, “it’s not enough to cover everybody’s wishes.”
Caito and his crew will conduct quality tests on Mendocino county crabs at the end of next week. That involves cooking several crabs and then carefully picking the meat; it needs to be at least 25 percent of the weight of the crab in the shell to pass the test. “We give that to the (California) Department of Fish and Wildlife, and they’ll decide if it’s ready to open.”
San Francisco fisherman David Kemp of the Blind Faith said dock prices — the amount fishermen get paid for their catch (which doesn’t account for transportation, cooking and storage) — went up from $3 a pound at the beginning of the season to at least $5 a few weeks later.
“You typically don’t see those prices until the spring when there’s very little crab around,” he said. “It’s difficult to cook crab, put it in a grocery store already cooked and get it to an end consumer at a price they can swallow. It gets prohibitively expensive. That’s where we are now.”
Kemp said he isn’t raking in money as a result; this is his second worst season in 10 years of fishing, he said, because there just isn’t enough crab out there.
However, like Cincotta and Caito, he thinks there will be crab in stores over Christmas and the New Year, for anyone who can afford them.
“Nobody should panic,” he said. “They’re lovely crab. They’re big and full. You’re not going to be disappointed.”
“If the whole coast was open, the price wouldn’t go up like it is now.” Jim Caito, president of Caito Fisheries in S.F. and Fort Bragg