TV chef blames Chinese middle classes for UK’S crab shortage

 Top TV chef Rick Stein says China is to blame for Britain’s crab shortage after government figures revealed exports to the country had doubled in a year. Last year the Chinese bought 17,000 tons of crab from the UK, and Stein, whose businesses include The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, Cornwall, said: “There’s very little crab around. For a couple of months there was virtually none.” He also told the BBC that the “affluent middle classes” in China were driving the demand.

Many of the crabs are caught off Cornwall and Devon and kept alive for the 11-hour flight to China. Yesterday Dawn Spencer, co-director of Bluewater Seafood Company in Paignton, Devon, told BBC Inside Out South West: “We find our orders from China are going up all the time and there seems to be an insatiable appetite.”

Johnny Murt, a local crab fisherman, also said that China is paying higher prices than the UK. He said: “We’ve been told that the end user in China is paying £21 per kilo, which is an incredible price. If we get £3 per kilo we’re happy.”