Local Marylanders may not be happy the next time they go to order crab cakes. Many are finding the prices are higher or they aren’t even available. Crab cakes are just as popular or a close second to the well-known steamed hard shell blue crabs, and lately restaurants have had a hard time keeping up with rising prices to serve them.
Maryland’s crab processing industry is experiencing a worker shortage that is causing prices for jumbo lump crabmeat to skyrocket.
The Point Crab House usually buys 1,000 to 1,500 pounds of lump crabmeat a week, but with the current prices they won’t be able to continue. Chef and co-owner, Bobby Jones, has made the decision to not offer it but in a few soups on the menu.
It is already normally an expensive meat to buy, but right now the prices have doubled. Usually a pound of lump crab meat is about $40, current pricing is at nearly $100 per pound.
Jones said for a restaurant to be able to continue to buy it at the current price they would be selling crab cake sandwiches for $55.
He said he certainly would not pay that much. He’s grown up in Baltimore and like many people, he can catch fresh crabs in his backyard.
Jones isn’t the only one noticing the higher prices.
“Crabs are becoming really really difficult to make money to survive as a business,” said Jones.
One of the reasons crab meat has skyrocketed with the increased demand since more crab houses have opened is that five of the nine major crab processors on Maryland's Eastern Shore have been shut out of the visa system. Less workers mean they can not process the amount of crab meat needed daily to meet demands.
Seafood processing is a $355 million industry in Maryland. Now there is concern that the shortage of visas for workers will negatively impact the state’s economy.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan sent a letter to the new U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and Secretary of Labor, for a solution to this visa shortage for seasonal workers needed by Maryland's crab processing industry.
“These essential workers are vital,” Governor Hogan said in his letter.
Bruce Wayland from Cantler’s Riverside Inn said the Maryland crab season was rough last year but there was less demand for crabs with the pandemic.
Jones said he imagines most restaurants will keep buying and serving lump crab meat just like with any peak season for food such as wings during the Super Bowl and beef during Valentine’s Day, businesses sell more, so they are going to keep buying it.
He said his restaurants will run out of crab meat this weekend and he has decided he will not buy anymore until the market changes. He knows people come and they expect to get crab meat from a crab house but they will not be selling it and he hopes customers understand.