January 31, 2024 — Roman Tkachenko, the CEO of Direct Source Seafood, a seafood importer based in Bellevue, Washington, U.S.A., is not thrilled with the U.S. government’s decision to implement and then expand a ban on Russian seafood entering the U.S.
Russian king crab inventories are almost extinguished in the U.S., and it’s impossible to bring more in as cooked frozen legs and claws, even with third-country processing that would change the country of origin. That’s because the only way to achieve a “deep transformation” of king crab to qualify it for the change is to process it into crab meat. Cooking from live king crab it is not enough for U.S. customs authorities, Tkachenko said. And Russia is getting such high prices from Chinese and Asian buyers for whole live and frozen crab, they don’t need to sell to the U.S., he said.