630 MARINE PRODUCTS OF COMMERCE 



in waxed cartons containing units of a dozen, that is, /z dozen or 1 dozen or more 

 crabs to the container, and marketed this way. Some packers eviscerate the soft 

 crabs before freezing. The comparative efficiency of these techniques has not been 

 sufficiently studied. 



The meat from the hard variety of this species is first cooked and removed from 

 the shell, then packed in M- and 1-pound containers. The cooked crab meat does 

 not retain its quality for more than 2 or 3 months in frozen storage, and, there- 

 fore, it is moved into sales channels as rapidly as possible. 



Some crab cakes and deviled crabs are frozen; these are usually prepared 

 according to the standard recipe for these products. They are precooked, placed 

 in individual approved types of containers, and frozen in units of a dozen; these 

 are ready to serve when defrosted and reheated. This is a comparatively new 

 development in the industry and is still in an experimental stage. It remains to 

 be determined whether or not the seasoning in the recipe changes in flavor over 

 long periods of storage as has been the experience in the case of many of the 

 precooked frozen foods. In the short time that these have been available they 

 have become very popular. 



By-products 



The waste material, consisting of viscera and shell, from the crab meat picking 

 plants is sold to reduction plants. The reduction plants usually process the crab 

 waste separately from other material since the dried ground shell material is con- 

 sidered a valuable addition to mixed diets for baby chicks and laying hens. 



Analysis of Dried Blue Crab Scrap % 



Moisture 6.04 



Calcium carbonate 44.06 



Calcium phosphate 8.54 



Protein (NX 6.25) 28.13 



Sulfates 0.30 



Undetermined 12.93 



100.00 

 Total iodine is 560 parts per billion. 



REFERENCES 

 Anderson, A. W., and Power, E. A., "Fishery Statistics of the United States, 1945," 



U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Statistical Digest, 18 (1949). 

 Andrews, E., "Crab Pot Construction," U. S. Fish and Wildhfe Service, Fishery Leaflet, 



262 (1948). 

 Andrews, E., "The 'Bob' Method of Picking Blue Crabs," U. S. Fish and Wildlife 



Service, FisJienj Leaflet, 276 (1948). 

 Andrews, E., "Trotline Construction, Operation, and Maintenance," U. S. Fish and 



Wildlife Service, Fishery Leaflet, 291 (1948). 

 Anon., "Canned Crab Industry of Japan," U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Fishery 



Leaflet, 314 (1948). 

 Anon., "The Alaska King Crab," U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Fishery Market News 



Supplement (1942). 

 Anon., "The Blue Crab (Callinectes sapidus) Fishery," U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 



Fishery Leaflet, 282 (1948). 



