Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The price of snow crab jumped last year. It explodes again this year. The price of the first arrivals of the season, which opened on Friday, exceeds $38 a pound for cooked crab in Montreal. Last year it was around $26. Enough for crab legs to stop being part of the springtime ritual for many Quebecers.
“It’s unheard of,” says Christian Servant, owner of the Délices de la mer fishmonger, at the Jean-Talon market.
“People come looking for the same, but they buy less. I saw a lot of people coming in, wanting four sections, then deciding to take two instead of four. It’s too expensive. »
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
At the Jean-Talon market, the price of live snow crab is $21.50 per pound. That of cooked crab is $38.50 per pound.
For a single section, it takes $12 to $18, depending on the size of the legs. Do the math. For four people, who eat three sections each, that’s between $140 and $216. Not badly priced for a dinner at home.
Several factors
This explosion can be explained by several factors: galloping inflation, which increases costs, particularly transport costs, the imposition of quotas on Alaskan crabs by the American government, which has had the effect of driving up the price crab in the United States, and by extension that paid to Quebec fishermen, as well as the repercussions of the invasion of Ukraine, because the boycott of Russia also affects Russian crabs, prized in the United States and Japan .
“It’s quite simple,” summarizes Pierre Léonard, fisheries coordinator for the Innus Essipit First Nation, on the North Shore. There are practically no Alaskan crabs in the markets. The Soviets, with what is happening in Ukraine, will not sell their crabs to the United States. And the demand is very strong in the American markets. That’s what dictates prices in Quebec, because it’s a market more dedicated to exports. »
In fact, Quebeckers only eat a tiny part of the crabs caught here. The vast majority of crustaceans are sold in the United States. In 2020, the American market represented more than 96% of the value of total Quebec snow crab exports, according to the most recent data from the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
PHOTO FROM FACEBOOK
Pierre Leonard
It’s a resource that’s here, but it’s really export prices that dictate retail prices in Quebec.
Pierre Léonard, Innu fisherman
“I find it appalling for the consumer. I think that at some point, the consumer will pick up, he adds. At the end of the week, here, some were sold at the fishmonger’s, but these are not the volumes that we usually sell. »
Same phenomenon in Gaspésie. “When the crab starts, we usually see queues in the fishmongers,” says Gaspésien Christian Servant. This year I have spoken to many fishmongers who have stock on hand. They didn’t sell everything they ordered. »
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Crab legs could cease to be part of the spring ritual of many Quebecers because of their price.
“We have to test the market”
That said, it is still too early, according to the director general of the Quebec Association of the fishing industry (AQIP), Jean-Paul Gagné, to know the demand on the American market. AQIP represents the processing plants that buy the crabs from the fishermen.
“At the moment it looks like the catches are good. It’s interesting. Now we have to test the market,” he says.
The price offered to fishers by the plants is currently $7.50 per pound of live crab, compared to $5.75 at the start of the 2021 season. It could climb to $10 in the coming weeks, depending on demand. .
$7.50 per pound is a provisional price, because we don’t know how the American market will behave. There is inflation, and everyone’s purchasing power has gone down. So we are careful. As we speak, there is no excitement from US buyers for snow crab.
Jean-Paul Gagné, CEO of AQIP
Fishing began on March 25 in area 17, in Gaspésie and on the Haute-Côte-Nord. Area 16 is due to open on April 4. And zone 12 will follow soon after.
“When everyone arrives on the market, the offer is very large. This is where the price will be fixed, specifies Mr. Gagné. Will it stay the same or will it increase? We’ll see. »
Director of the Area 16 Snow Crab Fishermen’s Board, Jean-René Boucher sees things differently. He expects the price paid to fishermen to rise quickly to $10 a pound and possibly to $12 a pound.
“There is a strong demand and the international context is favourable,” he notes. With the current state of the market, there is no reason for the price to start at $7.50 per pound. Of course, it is more expensive than what it was for consumers. On the other hand, we must understand that it is not necessarily the fisherman who is the big winner of all this. Between the fisherman and the consumer’s plate, there are several intermediaries. »
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Value, in millions of dollars, of snow crab exports in 2019. In 2015, it was 122 million.
Source: Government of Quebec
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Quebec snow crabs
Why is it so expensive?
Many factors explain the difference between the price paid to the fisherman ($7.50 per pound) and the price the consumer will pay ($21 to $27 per pound) in Montreal for live crab.
Firstly, fishermen’s sales to processing plants involve bulk peaches: shellfish may be damaged, with missing legs, but processors are able to salvage everything.
Secondly, the crab that is bought at the height of the season at the fishmonger’s does not go through the processor, and is rather bought directly by fishmongers or wholesalers, who add their margin and must bear transport and storage costs. . The crab is very fragile: it cannot be kept alive in water, like the lobster, and does not survive long on the ice. Losses must therefore be taken into account. Those crabs that you can’t cook when they give up the ghost. Or even those of crabs that are missing too many legs. Prices may therefore also differ between fishmongers that have direct links with fishermen and those that have to use a distributor.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Christian Servant, owner of Délices de la mer fishmonger
For us, just sending a truck for a shipment of crab, in Gaspésie, costs us about $1,500 in fees. The salaries of the drivers have increased, plus the cost of gasoline, it’s incredible. We do it every other day.
Christian Servant, owner of the Délices de la mer fishmonger, at the Jean-Talon market
Third, there are two fresh crab products. Live crab is cheaper because the body of the crustacean is not edible. We only keep the five legs and their base. There is therefore 40% loss in a whole crab.
For this reason, most consumers, to avoid the cooking and the unpleasant step of tearing the legs off the live crab to put them in boiling water, buy cooked sections from the fishmonger instead. The price of cooked crab is around $39 per pound in Montreal.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Live crab is cheaper because the body of the crustacean is not edible.
Cheaper in the east
Prices are lower in Quebec and the Gaspé, where you can find live crab at $15.50 a pound and cooked crab at $29.95 a pound. Last year, in these same regions, live crab sold for $11 a pound and cooked crab sold for $22. In 2020, it was $9 per pound for live food and $17.50 per pound for cooked food.
How much does it cost the Montreal consumer? It depends on the quantity we eat, our appetite and the size of the paws. The informal norm is one section of five legs per person for an entrée, and two or three sections for a main course. A small appetite, two sections, from $24 to $36, depending on the size. A big appetite, from $36 to $54. And multiply by the number of guests!
Natural fluctuation
Snow crab populations fluctuate naturally over eight to ten years. According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, stocks are currently bottoming out in the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence. “The biomass available for fishing should be comparable to that of 2021,” says biologist Cédric Juillet, of the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. “You should know that we mainly fish for male and adult snow crab measuring 95 mm or more,” he adds. Female crabs are of little commercial value due to their smaller size.