February 6, 2014 — A Canadian businessman says he has a solution to the population explosion of green crabs, which are ravaging Maine’s valuable shellfish industry: Put the crabs on menus around the world.
“We are going to take that invasive species and turn it into gold,” said Ron Howse, president and CEO of the Tidalwater Seafood Co., based in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Howse has scheduled a news conference for 2 p.m. Thursday at Brunswick Town Hall to lay out his plan to process green crabs in Maine and market the meat and live crabs to customers in Japan, Korea, China, Spain and Portugal. He said he’ll boil some crabs and offer samples of the meat – which he said has a sweet taste – at the news conference.
Howse, who has no background in the seafood industry, said Asian and European consumers will pay good money for green crabs, which are pests in Maine because they eat clams and mussels, steal bait from lobster traps, destroy eelgrass beds and damage salt marshes.
Howse, 65, said he’s looking at opening a processing plant in the Brunswick or Bangor area to pick the meat from green crabs, and may set up holding facilities along the Maine coast. He said there’s also a significant market for live crabs, which could be shipped to Asia and Europe on flights from the Bangor International Airport.
Howse said there’s enough money to finance the business plan if he gets some financial support from community development groups in the state. He said he has significant private funds available, but he wouldn’t provide details about the amount of money he has or the amount he would need to raise.
Clam diggers and marine resource managers are cautiously optimistic that Howse has come up with a workable business solution, something that would be remarkable because all other attempts have failed.
Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald