"It's a perplexing time in the world of luxury ingredients. Prestigious products have become inextricably tied to fast food. Caviar now adorns chicken nuggets; truffle features in supermarket hummus and Starbucks egg bites; wagyu beef is getting smashed into burgers and has made the menu at Burger King in the UK. Even lobster-bright red and festive-has gone from attention-getting centerpiece to mac-and-cheese mix-in."
"Yet crab retains its mystique. It's beloved for its delicately flavored, finely textured meat-and for its fatty, rich roe and tomalley, culinary categories unto themselves. Now large, live specimens from the far corners of the world, like snow crab from Japan and red king crab from Norway, are this season's luxury signifiers. "Even the cheapest crab that we sell is typically double the price of what Maine or Nova Scotia lobster costs," says Ian Purkayastha, founder of Regalis Foods."
"Retail consumers could spend upward of $1,200 to have a single, live 10-pound Norwegian red king crab delivered to their homes from Regalis. That, believe it or not, is the good news, he adds: "It's just going to continue to go up and up and up in price. It's not like you can farm a king crab." He won't be surprised if wholesale king crab prices top $100 a pound within five years."
Crab retains culinary cachet for its delicate meat, fatty roe and tomalley, and large live specimens from places like Japan and Norway serve as luxury signifiers. King and snow crab availability has been sharply affected by political and ecological disruptions, driving wholesale prices to about $70–$85 per pound and retail sales that can exceed $1,200 for a single 10-pound live specimen. Farming king crab is not feasible, contributing to sustained price inflation and projections that wholesale prices could top $100 per pound within five years. High-end dining, including omakase restaurants, is increasingly centering menus around premium crab.
Read at Fortune
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