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Issue link: https://seafoodbusiness.epubxp.com/i/112398
Special Feature Te Crustastun is available in a single-stunner size for restaurants and retailers and batch size for processors. ���Tere���s more stress from being handled than there is from being Crustastunned,��� says Buckhaven. He also says that the meat tastes better because the animals don���t tense up from stress. Buckhaven points out that exporters of live crustaceans from North America may not ���nd their product is welcome in European countries with strict animal welfare laws. ���PETA bought two machines and they want to promote it,��� he says. ���Every animal welfare organization in the world is on board.��� Buckhaven says he���s seen interest from the European market, particularly Austria, Belgium and Switzerland, but their forays into the United States have not had much success except at the Portland Whole Foods Market, which Buckhaven says they gave a prototype to that still appears to be in use. He introduced the Crustastun to America at both the National Restaurant Association Show and International Boston Seafood Show, and tried to get a high-pro���le chef to adopt it here. ���But we just couldn���t get it,��� Buckhaven says. He says consumer awareness is the key to driving demand for it in the United States. Te company is also hoping to make the device more accessible by developing a larger machine for highvolume chain restaurants like Red Lobster and a low-cost plastic version for home use. But the latest ���ndings on crab pain from Queen���s University, which were widely publicized in the United States, seemed to have little fallout. Te people who care generally aren���t the ones eating seafood in the ���rst place, says LaCroix. On the West Coast, where Dungeness crab season means live crabs available, the sentiment was the same. Asked whether customers inquire about the treatment of the live crabs, Tryan Hartill, retail manager for Northwest Wild Products in Astoria, Ore., says, ���Never. We���ve sold crab for 10 years and I���ve been working here for three years, and I���ve never heard anybody say anything. Tey see how they are in the tank.��� Hartill says every once in a while someone might ask if they squeal when cooked, but no one has ever asked how they���re treated in the tanks. Te issue has come up before. ���I���m an old fart so I have a long memory. Years ago [in San Francisco] they wanted the people to kill the crabs before they cook them by either freezing them or something else,��� remembers Daniel Strazzullo, 66, president of All Shores Seafood Brokerage and Peninsula Seafood Market in San Bruno, Calif. Te e���ort caused a ���huge uproar on Fishermen���s Wharf��� and was defeated. Strazzullo, whose father owned a crab shack at the waterfront tourist spot, says selling live crabs helps keep the retail portion of his business a���oat. A crab pot in the front of the store helps distinguish it from supermarket chains. Strazzullo says if a customer were to ask about the treatment of the crabs, he���d tell that customer what his father told him: Tat everything is alive at some point ��� plants, animals and even dirt ��� so where do you draw the line? ���We live in a world where everything we eat is alive,��� he says. Email Assistant Editor Melissa Wood at mwood@divcom.com Turningpointinmshprocessing X-RayGuided 5 CuttingMachine Bonefree ���sh ���llet ��� Detectsbonesdown to0.2mminsize 3 A robot ��� Doubledcapacitycompared tomanualcutting X-R ay controlled water jet cuts the ���rst curve ��� Cutswithgreataccuracy 4 Second water jet ��� Cutsoutpinbones&portions; ��� Possibletocutportions tospecimedweight cuts the pinbone loose 1 X-ray camera dectects bones down to 0.2mm 2 Vision system 3D image is mapped with the x-ray image to accurately locate the bones Scantosee themachine inaction 52 SeaFood Business March 2013 Vikurhvarf 8 203 Kopavogur T: (+354) 534 9300 F: (+354) 534 9301 valka@valka.is www.valka.is Visit us online at www.seafoodbusiness.com