Differing interpretations of grading standards for live mud crabs between fishers and buyers is highly emotive and greatly impacts industry revenue and relationships throughout the supply chain. Live mud crabs are the Sydney Fish Market’s second most valuable product and one of its most problematic, mainly due to grading issues. The urgent need for national grading standards is illustrated by the high level of confusion existing within all industry sectors.
This is compounded by the current environmental conditions that created an oversupply and low mud crab prices at market. Recent floods resulted in old crab with little meat content entering the market in higher than normal proportions, as well as an abundance of newly moulted ‘empty’ crab that are more susceptible to mortality within the supply chain and are lower priced. With newly adopted improved handling practices, harvesters are looking for new markets and experiencing various grading interpretations.
Lack of consumer confidence in purchasing a ‘full' crab impacts industry revenue. Having purchased a crab with poor meat content, consumers are unlikely to purchase again.
There is overwhelming Industry support to develop a universal, objective, agreed and workable standard. To achieve this national standards needs to be developed to ensure all harvesters, buyers and marketers agree on consistent grading standard for live mud crab. Many currently active industry members indicated they are unclear of grading parameters for live mud crab.
With the Qld crab-review in progress, the development of grading standards is timely and will assist the transition to any adjusted management regime.
As the catch of mud crab is a major component of the recreational fishery in many jurisdictions it is important to educate them on how to tell if a crab would be best returned to the water.
Final report
This project lead to a large number of outcomes that provided significant benefit to the Australian live mud crab industry supply chain. These include:
- Agreement on an easy to use, national, industry-driven, grading scheme for live mud crabs (the Australian Industry Live Mud Crab Grading Scheme) and the development of a range of material to extend the scheme widely
- Industry ownership and support for the grading scheme has been evident, with many sectors, individuals and groups taking the scheme on board, including the Sydney Fish Market (SFM) adopting the Australian Live Mud Crab Grading Scheme as part of its grading guidelines.
- Improved revenue return to the supply chain through a reduction in downgraded live mud crab, resulting in maximum price per unit. Even though not formally adopted until December 2012, data indicates up to a $1.40/kg increase in value for properly graded product at the SFM since the forum.
- Supply chain partners have indicated greater consumer satisfaction and less disagreement due to the development of the extension material and easy to use grading scheme. With the formal launch of the scheme on 3rd December 2012, in conjunction with the SFM, the linking with key sector sites and groups, and all of the material going live, it is anticipated that as consumers become better informed in their decision making process when choosing mud crab, there will be elevated consumer confidence to buy premium quality, live mud crab, engendering more frequent purchases.
- The linking of project 2010/302 and this project has seen far greater utilisation of Research, Development and Extension (RD&E) resources along the supply chain. Six trips were undertaken jointly to meet with key people and groups along the supply chain (NT x 2, NSW x 2, Vic x 1, Qld x 1), and the linking of best handling and grading became intertwined. In addition, when work on either project has taken place by the individual project teams, the opportunity to cross reference the projects has allowed the combined knowledge of the projects to be further extended.
- The forum methodology, which focused on providing optimal input from industry, was extremely well supported and can serve as a template for future whole of supply chain meetings.
- The benefits of using professional media/design personnel as part of capturing outcomes from the workshop and developing extension material proved very successful and resulted in production of high quality, client focussed, targeted material.
Keywords: Mud crab, grading scheme, quality, facilitation, extension, industry, supply chain.