DELMARVA - A federal seafood dispute that Eastern Shore seafood companies warned could devastate crab supply chains has now taken a new turn Monday, with federal regulators officially allowing imports from certain countries to continue.
As WBOC previously reported, local seafood companies including Salisbury-based Handy Seafood, Cebu Pacific LLC, and Byrd International joined a federal lawsuit late last year challenging new restrictions tied to the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. The companies argued the rules threatened jobs, production, and the nation’s crab supply because much of the pasteurized crab meat sold in the United States comes from Southeast Asia.
Now, NOAA Fisheries says it has completed a new review of several swimming crab fisheries after a federal court temporarily paused the import restrictions.
According to NOAA, the agency has now granted “comparability findings” to swimming crab fisheries in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam, allowing crab and crab products from those fisheries to continue entering the United States. NOAA upheld its denial of comparability findings for swimming crab fisheries in the Philippines, however, with a ban going into effect in June.
The decision stems from the Marine Mammal Protection Act’s seafood import provisions, which require foreign fisheries exporting seafood to the U.S. to meet marine mammal protection standards comparable to those required of American fisheries. Fisheries denied those findings faced import bans at the beginning of the year.
The original lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade, argued NOAA’s earlier determinations could eliminate nearly 90% of the blue swimming crab available to the U.S. market and severely impact seafood processors on the Eastern Shore and beyond.
In court filings obtained by WBOC, Handy Seafood said most of its crab meat and a substantial portion of its crab cake production relies on imports from Indonesia. The company warned the restrictions could force production stoppages and leave it with more than $1 million in stranded inventory overseas.
Baltimore-based Phillips Foods also argued there is no commercially viable domestic replacement capable of matching imported crab supply volumes, including crabs from the Chesapeake Bay. Company officials previously warned consumers could ultimately see higher prices and reduced availability if broad import restrictions took effect.
NOAA says the revised decisions followed additional information submitted after the court ordered the agency to reconsider the swimming crab fisheries at the center of the case.
The federal agency noted countries denied comparability findings can still reapply in the future. NOAA also said its broader 2025 review evaluated roughly 2,500 fisheries across 135 nations, with 240 fisheries from 46 countries ultimately denied comparability findings.
