Cromer Crab – a protected brand?
Food Blog — By kent on October 22, 2009 at 11:00 amAbout time too we say! The North Norfolk town of Cromer is renowned for its most famous product – Cromer Crab.
Pot-caught crabs from Cromer, fished from small boats using traditional methods, are smaller than most UK edible crabs. But because of the make up of the sea bed around Cromer these crabs are fatter and sweeter – Cromer Crabs are fabulous.
Unfortunatley the good name of the Cromer Crab has, we believe, been tarnished by, of all people, The Cromer Crab Company (part of the Findus Group).
If you go into a supermarket (try Waitrose for instance) you’ll find ‘Cromer Crab’ being sold at the fresh fish counter. All good you might think, but look a little closer. Next to the ‘plastic shells’ you’ll find a label informing you that the ‘region of origin’ is the ‘North Atlantic’.
The last time I looked Cromer was on the east coast of England and Cromer Crabs were fished from the North Sea. These supermarket Cromer Crabs are impostors, they are commercially fished, Atlantic crabs frozen at sea and shipped hundreds, or maybe thousands of miles to Cromer to be processed by the Cromer Crab Company and by doing so adopt the name of the town. It’s just our opinion but we think any product being sold as Cromer Crab should be from, well, Cromer.
Recent calls for the Cromer Crab name to be protected and thereby acknowledging the hard and dangerous work of Cromer’s fishermen can only be a good thing. You’ll find more information from the BBC by following this link.
Cromer Crabs are available from Farm, Park & Wild between April and Christmas if the weather allows
See our menu to order you Cromer Crabs, guaranteed fresh from the beach in Cromer and caught by Cromer Crab fisherman John Lee.
Tags: Cromer Crab, Cromer crabs, Farm Park & Wild, Fresh Food Delivery, North Norfolk
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5 Comments
A great story. I’ve always suspected this might be the case otherwise you would expect Cromer to have a very noticeable (and prosperous) crab fishing industry. It seems devious marketing to label these crabs as ‘Cromer crabs’ on this basis. They’re not really Cromer crabs unless they’ve been fished for at Cromer (or at least on the same coastline).
Yes – I was nearly caught out by this in Waitrose but spotted the small print in time. I have written to them about it as I feel it doesn’t match up to their usual high standards. You certainly couldn’t have told from the price that this (and the lobsters they sell under the same label) was an inferior product.
It took Melton Mowbray many years to get protection for their name so this may be a long haul. Also there’ll be the need to decide just how far along the coast the designation would apply. Personally I’ve always thought that the crabs caught off Salthouse have the edge on the Cromer ones – and Sheringham’s the place for lobsters! Hope this doesn’t restart the Crab War.
Was a pleasure reading this!