Historically about 90% of global king crab supply comes from Russia, with the balance of product from Alaska, Canada, and Norway. Catch total are heavily regulated by a quota system as a method to control overfishing.
2022 sanctions against Russian imports announced, causing a rush to quickly import product and flood the marketplace with high supply during a period of low demand (i.e. low prices). Taking advantage of low prices and armed with the knowledge that the 10% of non-Russian product would not be able to meet future global demand (and be incredibly high priced), Seafoods of the World stocked up on pre-sanction Russian product.
2023—early 2024: Product continues to circulate at mid-range prices. October 2023, minimal Alaskan harvesting season puts some new product in the market.
Fall/Winter 2024: Alaskan season opens, higher catch limits than previous years, but still not nearly enough to meet demand. Seafoods of the World purchased some product to bolster inventories, but at higher prices.
January 2025: Is a Russian settlement on the horizon? If so, king crab markets would be flooded with product and prices projected to DROP by $20-25 per pound… that’s a scary number when you are sitting on thousands of pounds of high-priced inventory! Seafoods of the World took a gamble and offloaded some of our expensive inventory.
Current 2025: Well… so much for that Russian settlement.
With limited global product on the market available for restocking, Seafoods of the World inventories begin to deplete with some sizes completely gone. Alaskan product won’t be harvested again until October, leaving only Norwegian product on the marketplace and boy is it expensive! With purchase costs of over $70, Seafoods of the World has made the decision to not repurchase Red King Crab at this time. Hopefully the October Alaskan fishing season will bring some lower priced product into the marketplace and allow us to repurchase product for the 2025 holiday season.
2025 Holiday UPDATE
2025 Holiday King Crab is on the horizon!
NEW PRODUCT from the 2025-2026 Alaskan season is on order.
Our current expected arrival date is November 10, 2025 with 2# bag availability later that week (please allow time for processing). This arrival date is subject to change—we have seen several delays on other Alaskan shipments this fall.
PRICES are significantly higher compared to last season due to lack of supply. It really pains us to sell product at these prices, so we’ve done what we can to get the best price possible for our customers. Some things we have done include reducing our margins, opting for ‘Gold’ versus ‘Red’ king crab and reducing bag sizes to 2 pounds.
Pricing & availability are now listed under individual product pages. Some Norwegian product is on hand (notated on each item) with Alaskan product on order.
ALTERNATIVES
Don’t forget to check out our JUMBO Snow Crab Clusters (12-14oz each, compared to most grocery stores at 5-8oz) and Dungeness clusters!
We WILL NOT run out of product, so pre-orders are not required.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any other questions.