King of Crabs

I T S TA NG L E D FAT E H A S I N VOLV E D T H E PAC I F IC, T H E AT L A N T IC, T H E NORW EG I A N A RC T IC A N D M E RC U R I A L S OV I E T S .

JEFFR EY T I V E R S ON U N R AV E L S T H E I M PROBA BL E TA L E OF THE MOST R EGA L OF A L L C RU S TAC E A N S

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ince the 17th century, the Norwegian coastal village of Bugøynes, 500 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, has been an unlikely land of opportunity for people of hardy constitutions and entrepreneurial spirit. For despite the rugged, lunarlike landscape, Bugøynes sits on the Barents Sea, where the temperate Gulf Stream and frigid Arctic waters meet, creating a rich marine environment teeming with some of the world’s largest fisheries – the source of livelihood for generations.

But over time, Bugøynes, like many centuries-old Barents Sea fishing towns, has found itself outcompeted by fishprocessing industries as far away as China. Rebekka Anderssen was a child when the whitefish factory closed in the 1980s. “We – the kids – did not understand exactly what the word ‘bankrupt’ meant,” she recalls, “but we knew that our parents lost their jobs in

the fishing industry.”

Today, the factory in Bugøynes is running again, with Anderssen as CEO of production. Their business, though, isn’t whitefish anymore. “There are about 220 people living in Bugøynes, but everyday this tiny village is shipping out a product to cities of millions,” says Svein Ruud, founder of Norway King Crab (norwaykingcrab.no), a rising leader in a promising new branch of the high-end seafood business – king crab from the Barents Sea. Red king crab, Kamchatka crab, crabe royal… all refer to Paralithodes camtschaticus, the largest, most prized crab in the world, rival to lobster for the rich, briny-sweet flavour of its abundant, tender meat.

So prized that overfishing has caused stocks to dwindle precariously in its native Bering Sea off Russia’s Pacific coast. But thanks to a half-mad project conceived in Russia during the chimeric era of

Stalin’s “Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature”, today millions of camtschaticus are thriving on the opposite side of the Earth and returning to the menus of the world’s finest seafood restaurants, like One-O-One in London, Water Grill in Los Angeles and Petrossian in Paris.

Ask Armen Petrossian, CEO of the eponymous Paris-based company (petrossian.com), about crabe royal, and his moustache will bounce with passion and nostalgic stories of his mother’s Russian crab salad. “I was born with this crab,” says the caviar empire boss. “I ate it throughout my childhood – my astrological sign is Cancer after all, a crab!” After Armen’s father and uncle introduced caviar to Western Europe in the 1920s, they went on to popularise another Russian delicacy. “Five different species are called ‘king crab’, but none of the others has the qualities of camtschaticus,” says Petrossian. “It’s absolutely

ILLUSTRATION MARCEL GEORGE

King of Crabs CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM

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I T S TA NG L E D FAT E H A S I N VOLV E D T H E PAC I F IC, T H E AT L A N T IC, T H E NORW EG I A N A RC T IC A N D M E RC U R I A L S OV I E T S .

JEFFR EY T I V E R S ON U N R AV E L S T H E I M PROBA BL E TA L E OF THE MOST R EGA L OF A L L C RU S TAC E A N S

98

S

ince the 17th century, the Norwegian coastal village of Bugøynes, 500 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, has been an unlikely land of opportunity for people of hardy constitutions and entrepreneurial spirit. For despite the rugged, lunarlike landscape, Bugøynes sits on the Barents Sea, where the temperate Gulf Stream and frigid Arctic waters meet, creating a rich marine environment teeming with some of the world’s largest fisheries – the source of livelihood for generations.

But over time, Bugøynes, like many centuries-old Barents Sea fishing towns, has found itself outcompeted by fishprocessing industries as far away as China. Rebekka Anderssen was a child when the whitefish factory closed in the 1980s. “We – the kids – did not understand exactly what the word ‘bankrupt’ meant,” she recalls, “but we knew that our parents lost their jobs in

the fishing industry.”

Today, the factory in Bugøynes is running again, with Anderssen as CEO of production. Their business, though, isn’t whitefish anymore. “There are about 220 people living in Bugøynes, but everyday this tiny village is shipping out a product to cities of millions,” says Svein Ruud, founder of Norway King Crab (norwaykingcrab.no), a rising leader in a promising new branch of the high-end seafood business – king crab from the Barents Sea. Red king crab, Kamchatka crab, crabe royal… all refer to Paralithodes camtschaticus, the largest, most prized crab in the world, rival to lobster for the rich, briny-sweet flavour of its abundant, tender meat.

So prized that overfishing has caused stocks to dwindle precariously in its native Bering Sea off Russia’s Pacific coast. But thanks to a half-mad project conceived in Russia during the chimeric era of

Stalin’s “Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature”, today millions of camtschaticus are thriving on the opposite side of the Earth and returning to the menus of the world’s finest seafood restaurants, like One-O-One in London, Water Grill in Los Angeles and Petrossian in Paris.

Ask Armen Petrossian, CEO of the eponymous Paris-based company (petrossian.com), about crabe royal, and his moustache will bounce with passion and nostalgic stories of his mother’s Russian crab salad. “I was born with this crab,” says the caviar empire boss. “I ate it throughout my childhood – my astrological sign is Cancer after all, a crab!” After Armen’s father and uncle introduced caviar to Western Europe in the 1920s, they went on to popularise another Russian delicacy. “Five different species are called ‘king crab’, but none of the others has the qualities of camtschaticus,” says Petrossian. “It’s absolutely

ILLUSTRATION MARCEL GEORGE

King of Crabs CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM

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28.04.15 14:35

incomparable, for its size, its flavour and its history.” For years, Petrossian distributed Kamchatka crab all across Europe. But with the Soviet Union’s fall came industry chaos and illegal fishing, eventually forcing Petrossian to abandon the trade.

A decade later, Petrossian got an unanticipated opportunity to import camtschaticus anew. To provide a valuable new catch for Barents Sea Soviet fishermen, Russian scientists in the 1960s began importing massive quantities of live Kamchatka crabs from the Pacific Ocean – 8,000 kilometres away. “It’s unfathomable,” laughs Petrossian. “This project could’ve only been imagined under the Soviet Union!”

The crab flourished. In 2002, Russia and Norway concluded quota negotiations and the first Barents Sea commercial king crab fishery was launched. As a non-native species, the voracious crustacean’s spread must be rigorously checked, and Norway even permits unfettered fishing west of the North Cape to slow its migration. Fears of unforeseen environmental consequences remain, but meanwhile small Russian and Norwegian fishing villages along the Barents are unquestionably enjoying a rebirth thanks to the royal crustacean, in part because no other local seafood product fetches higher prices per kilo.

“It was the beginning of a whole new story,” Petrossian recalls. The first Barents Sea crabs he tasted were strangely disappointing, but eventually Petrossian identified the problem: crabs were suffering undue stress, piled for hours in fishing boat holds before reaching factories onshore. To re-create the exquisite quality Petrossian remembered of Kamchatka crab, he worked

three years with Russian fishermen to import the old Bering Sea techniques of onboard processing. Today, the instant Petrossian’s crabs reach the boat they are cooked in seawater and flash frozen, preserving astounding flavour and texture. “At prices 40-50% above the competition, people said I’d never be able to sell it,” he says. “Then they tasted it.”

In ten years, Petrossian went from selling zero to around 180 tons of Barents Sea king crab annually. And the crab salad served at Petrossian’s Paris restaurant? That’s Armen’s mother’s recipe.

Few Norwegian competitors could compare with Petrossian’s until the Norway King Crab company arrived in Bugøynes in 2008. In just a few years, Norway King Crab has emerged as a veritable symbol of gastronomic luxury, partnering with Krug Champagne, and being served at La Marée in Monaco, Novikov in London and Nobu in

“Five dif ferent sp e cie s are c alle d ‘king crab’, but none of the other s has the qualitie s of this . It ’s ab solutely inc omp arable , for its size , its flavour and its history ”

Six years later, nearly 50% of Norway’s entire catch is sold live, with crab export values skyrocketing (up NOK 74 million since 2012 alone to NOK 205/€23.5 million in 2014). Norway King Crab is setting the industry bar, researching methods for creating conditions that minimise stress during transport, even monitoring crab heart rates using fibre optics. “I’m focusing on quality, regularity and traceability,” says Ruud. Soon, Norway King Crabs will have individual QR code tags, which a curious diner can scan with their phone to know the crab’s entire history from the table back to the fisherman who caught it. “I don’t want to sell a commodity, I want to sell a story,” says Ruud. And the saga of King Crab is a delicious tale indeed.

Hong Kong.

The secret?

While his compatriots lost money attempting to compete by exporting high volumes of frozen crab at low prices, Norway King Crab founder Ruud drew inspiration from the New Zealand spiny lobster industry (which doubled the value of its exports in a decade while actually reducing their hauls) and adopted another strategy – exporting live crab.

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