NFI Crab Council Announces New Member

Seafood America has joined the National Fisheries Institute’s (NFI) Crab Council. A crab products manufacturer based in Warminster, Pa., Seafood America has provided customers with easy-to-prepare meals for more than 25 years. 

The company’s consumer-facing Dockside brand features meal-ready seafood items including crab appetizers, crab sliders and crab cakes. Choosing to source exclusively from Crab Council members, Seafood America supports the council’s sustainability mission by contributing to blue swimming crab resource management in Southeast Asia. Historically, Seafood America has only bought crabmeat from NFI Crab Council members in order to support the sustainability programs underway and as a way of differentiating themselves in the value-added market.

“Seafood America has long partnered with Crab Council members,” says Jim Burke, president, Seafood America. “Now a member ourselves, we’ve joined these committed companies in order to strengthen our shared interest in responsible harvest and supply chain practices.”

Seafood America joins the Crab Council as its 29th company and first non-importing, processor member. The Crab Council is an industry-led sustainability effort whose membership includes U.S. and international crab companies. The Crab Council receives its funding for fishery improvement projects in Southeast Asia from member assessments on every pound of blue swimming crab imported as well as through contributions from member companies associated with the crab industry like Seafood America.

The inclusion of companies outside of the crab market’s importing sphere encourages Crab Council Chairman Brendan Sweeny on the sustainability group’s growth.

“What started as an importer-focused effort has broadened to encompass a diverse range of companies,” says Sweeny. “Seafood America is a company that doesn’t import raw crab product itself but produces things like value added crab cakes, available at the retail level. Their addition to the group brings the Crab Council’s story from a business-to-businesses context all the way to the consumer-level. With their addition we see producers, importers and independent processors all involved and committed to one goal, an important evolution and amplification of crab sustainability.”

The NFI Crab Council was founded in 2009 and funds blue swimming crab sustainability projects through contributions from participating companies and has received grants from the World Bank, the Walton Family Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.