'Made in USA'

[Unregistered]

'Made in USA'
But most meat in Md. firm's crab cakes comes from Asia
By Stephanie Desmon
Sun reporter
Originally published May 1, 2006
The routine isn't rehearsed, but after hundreds of appearances on the QVC shopping channel over the past decade, Ron and Margie Kauffman know what they'll say when it comes to the millions of Maryland-style crab cakes they sell under the brand Chesapeake Bay Gourmet.

There is plenty of talk about the large lumps of crabmeat, about the company's ties to Maryland and the Chesapeake. On QVC's Web site, the products are labeled "Made in USA."
What the carefully worded language omits is one critical fact. Little, if any, of the crabmeat used in the company's crab cakes is from the Chesapeake Bay or even the United States.

There is nothing dishonest about the labeling. The crab cakes - ranging from bite-sized hors d'oeuvres to dinner portions - are, in fact, assembled in a Baltimore County warehouse. But the bright white lumps of crabmeat that spill through each crab cake come mostly from Asia, with a little from Mexico and some "small percentage" from Maryland, though company founder Ron Kauffman Sr. won't say how much.

Kauffman's business, which has operated for more than 25 years, didn't always rely on foreign crabmeat. For years, the small company he and his wife ran with other relatives bought each pound of crabmeat from suppliers on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

That ensured that the company stayed small. Then, at almost the same time, QVC discovered the Kauffmans and the Kauffmans discovered Asia. There couldn't have been one relationship without the other.

Global forces that brought to the United States a cousin of the Maryland blue crab - caught in the waters off Southeast Asia - have allowed the Kauffmans to sell 8 million to 10 million crab cakes annually, about 5 million of them on QVC last year. In Maryland, just under 2.5 million pounds of local crabmeat were produced last year.

"It was very gut-wrenching that we even had to go away from Maryland meat," Ron Kauffman said. "We're very proud people that love selling Maryland-style crab cakes."

But, he added, "The customers are more concerned about the quality of the product than the origin of it."

Others in the industry have long struggled with the notion that the crabmeat they sell is not fresh domestic blue crab but something called blue swimming crab caught in Southeast Asia and pasteurized to make the long journey to American consumers.

When Miami-based John Keeler & Co. began selling Asian crab a decade ago, "it was comical," said spokesman Steve Harmell. "We had to literally give our product away. We had to beg people to try it. 'Are you kidding me? Blue crabmeat from Thailand?'" Now its Blue Star brand is a top seller.

The strategy has been to play down where the crab comes from. Still, the information is often there - if you know where to look for it. Small print on most cans and tubs of crabmeat names its country of origin. Somewhere on most boxes of crab cakes in supermarket freezers the source of crab is divulged. For example, boxes of crab cakes sold in some Wal-Marts made by Handy International - based in Crisfield on Maryland's Eastern Shore - read "Product of Thailand."

In 2002, Bethesda-based Made in the USA Foundation sued Phillips Foods in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, claiming that it was misleading customers into believing its products were made with Maryland seafood by saying they were made in the United States - even though nearly all of the Baltimore company's crab comes from Asia. The lawsuit was dismissed, but Phillips packages today are clearly marked.

Back at M&I Seafood, which makes the Chesapeake Bay Gourmet brand crab cakes sold on QVC, women in hairnets, green rubber gloves and white aprons slice open 1-pound bags of frozen crabmeat. Co-workers take a slurry of ingredients - mayonnaise, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, cracker crumbs, eggs and bay spices - and slowly mix them together with the crab. With ice cream scoops, they place the concoction onto cookie sheets for a trip to the freezer. In 20 minutes, the crab cakes will be as hard as hockey pucks and ready to be boxed and shipped in dry ice across the country.

"Could you tell if you were blindfolded which was fresh [from Maryland] and which was from Asia? I'm not so sure," Ron Kauffman said.

"Good old boys from the Eastern Shore say there's nothing better" than local crabmeat, he said. "The numbers of how crab cakes are selling around the country - that tells you something."

[kittyinthecity]

I wonder if Kansas City Steaks really use Kansas cows?

[Jasmine46]

Kitty, you probably don't want to know the answer to that one!

Imported catfish and shrimp has really hurt the farmers and shrimpers, too. It's a shame, especially when this line of work has been in their families for many generations.

A lot of people think when they are buying a Ford that they are getting an American car, but a lot of them are now made in Mexico, because the workers only get paid around $6000 per year, or something ridiculously low like that.
There are a lot of Japanese and European cars being made in the USA now, and these companies have provided jobs to our citizens. There's a town in Mississippi that makes Nissans now, and Mercedes has a factory in Alabama. BMW is planning a factory in Mobile, AL.

[bookchick]

we don't buy crabcakes ready made; when we do buy crabmeat, we check to see if it is from MD, VA, NC or at least some US state
around Christmas there's a big demand for crabmeat; once we did buy foreign meat and it did NOT have the sweet taste of our blue crabs

of course, the Kaufmann's need so much crabmeat for their business
i guess i can't blame them for seeking out a a foreign source

can't beat MD crabs, though

:-)
bookie

[hellokitty]

Don't blame them for going outside the US, but it does sound SO misleading. So misleading, in fact, that I'm surprised that QVC allows that much promo of Maryland crabcakes. It's not wrong, but it's misleading, and you would think that QVC has a level of standard. Who knows.

[bookchick]

i know
there's something not quite honest about it
if they were made in say, Kansas, would they be still be Maryland crabcakes(made from Thai crabmeat)?

hmmmm

bookie

[Barbi]

Sorry...crab is crab is crab...and if the crabcakes (yum, yum!!!) are actually made in Baltimore, then that means they are up to the Food and Drug standards...so, who cares? They're delicious, and worth the bucks, in my opinion!

[Unregistered]

I must add my comments to this thread. I grew up in Crisfield, Maryland, that they speak of in the article. I tried those QVC crabcakes, once, just for couriousity. The crabmeat does not look like MD crabmeat, nor does it taste like Maryland crabmeat. Those crabcakes are so popular because most people don't even know what real crabmeat from the Eastern Shore of Maryland tastes like. It has annoyed me from day one that these Kauffman people can get away with that and have made millions misleading the QVC customer. One sure way to tell if the crabmeat you are eating is from overseas is the color. It is snowy white, compaired to the tan/cream color of MD crab meat. I guess if you really don't know good crabmeat and like the QVC crab cakes, that's fine. But, they should be made to tell people the whole truth when they are selling them.

[bookchick]

that's what i was trying to say
MD crabmeat is MD crabmeat--it has a sweeter,fuller taste to it
the imported is kind of bland

sad to say, i rarely get crabcakes in restaurants because simply put,they're better at home

crabs, corn, tomatoes, melon--that's summer!

bookie

[Unregistered]

Bookchick,
You sound like you know Maryland! Can't wait for "real" tomatoes! And, I love you little picture, haven't seen that cat in years! If you come to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, a few restaurtants still use local, or at least North Caroline crab meat.

[bookchick]

i lived in annapolis for 25 years and now live in southern maryland

VA, MD, and NC are all acceptable--the crabs don't know the state lines, thoughthe VA and MD watermen did/do!!!

love our summers--long, hot, humid, great produce and those crabs

MD really IS the "land of pleasant living"

...and summer is just around the corner

:-)

bookie

[kittyinthecity]

I knew there was a reason I didn't like those crabcakes from QVC! I mean they look great, big white chunks of crab meat, but they just didn't taste like the ones I had at the little resturants on Kiawah Island, SC. That's because theirs was fresh off the boats and not frozen from Asia. I had crabcakes in Baltimore many, many years ago and I remember I loved them. The ones from QVC just didn't bring back those memories.

[LA-CAgirl3]

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Jasmine46:

A lot of people think when they are buying a Ford that they are getting an American car, but a lot of them are now made in Mexico, because the workers only get paid around $6000 per year, or something ridiculously low like that.
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The nearby (VA) plant making Ford trucks just announced it is closing. A few thousand more out of work. Wonder who will be picking up that pick-up manufacturing.

[bookchick]

that's a shame
could be anywhere

there are more F-150's in the world than any other pickup (at least that was true a few years ago)

wonder what will happen to the workers?

bookie

[LA-CAgirl3]

Some will take early retirement but many will be SOL. There certainly aren't lots of union jobs with major companies around here. Even some of our local military bases are being cut back in this "re-organization". Stinks.

[Unregistered]

Oh, Bookchick, you lived in Annapolis, one of my favorite places! We spend every New Year's Eve at the harbor over there. I'm on the Eastern Shore. If they get the ferry from Crisfield MD, to Reedville, VA, you may be close enough to get real Eastern Shore of MD crabcakes again! But, southern MD ones are just as good, I'm sure. Amazing when you read these BB's and usually you think of everyone being so far away, to find someone in your own area of the world!
Take care...

[Jasmine46]

I read about this in the paper the other day- It's a shame the automakers haven't been more pro-active in developing some sort of alternative.

UPDATE 1-Ford sales fall 7 percent in April
Tue May 2, 2006 12:37 PM ET

DETROIT, May 2 (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co. <F.N> on Tuesday said U.S. vehicle sales fell 7 percent in April, hurt by a slump in demand for sport-utility vehicles.

Ford said it sold 262,722 vehicles last month, compared with 281,292 vehicles a year ago.

Analysts had expected Ford's sales to drop 4 to 8 percent.

Results for Ford, the second-largest U.S. automaker, include its import brands and some medium- and heavy-duty trucks and are not adjusted for the extra selling day in April 2005.

Ford's truck sales fell 15 percent, offsetting an 8 percent rise in car sales. Analysts have expressed concern over weakening sales that indicate a gradual shift away from truck-based SUVs and toward cars, as SUVs represent the most profitable segment of the market for U.S. automakers.

Ford Explorer sales fell more than 42 percent in April and its Expedition sales dropped more than 33 percent.

Ford's sales figures are the first indication that gasoline prices, hovering around $3 a gallon in many areas, have cut deeply into sales of larger, less fuel-efficient SUVs.

[Novalee]

Jas, when I was younger and my Dad would tell me he was glad he was born when he was and wouldn't be my age for anything, I used to think he was crazy. The older I get, the more I understand and feel the same way. I can remember a time when I thought the automakers were so rock solid.

[pebbles]

I'm also from Maryland and we spend time on the Eastern Shore every summer. You haven't lived until you've had a bucket of steamed MD blue crabs. There's just no substitute. A real MD crab cake has no fillers; you can actually see the lumps of crab. And it should be sweet and fresh tasting. No fishy smell at all.

[Jasmine46]

Wow, we have a lot of Marylanders here. I lived a good part of my life in Maryland, too. I don't think I ever ate any crabs there, though. We lived mostly in the urban areas and only went to the shore a few times.
My mother-in-law has sent some really good crabmeat from Alabama, but I'm not too sure how that compares to the Maryland crab. Y'all are making me hungry, though!

Nova, I know what you're dad meant, now when I see movies from the 50's and early 60's. I get nostalgic, and I don't even remember those years.
Life seemed so simple then and people felt optomistic and secure in their jobs and the future. There isn't much of that for the average blue-collar or entry-level employee nowdays.

[Unregistered]

You got it, Pebbles! And, it's fun to see so many people familiar with little ol' Maryland! It's Springfest in Ocean City, MD this weekend, summer is almost here!

[Unregistered]

A bit of seafood sleight of hand
Maryland's beloved crab cakes may be made in U.S., but their meat has international flavor

By Stephanie Desmon
Tribune Newspapers: Baltimore Sun
Published May 5, 2006


BALTIMORE -- The routine isn't rehearsed, but after hundreds of appearances on the QVC shopping channel over the past decade, Ron and Margie Kauffman know what they'll say when it comes to the millions of Maryland-style crab cakes they sell under the brand Chesapeake Bay Gourmet.

There is plenty of talk about the large lumps of crabmeat, about the company's ties to Maryland and the Chesapeake. On QVC's Web site, the products are labeled "Made in USA."

What the carefully worded language omits is one crucial fact: Little, if any, of the crabmeat in the company's crab cakes is from the Chesapeake Bay or even the U.S.

There is nothing dishonest about the labeling. The crab cakes--ranging from bite-sized hors d'oeuvres to dinner portions--are, in fact, assembled in a Baltimore County warehouse. But the bright white lumps of crabmeat that spill through each crab cake come mostly from Asia, with a little from Mexico and some "small percentage" from Maryland, though company founder Ron Kauffman Sr. won't say how much.

Kauffman's business, which has operated for more than 25 years, didn't always rely on foreign crabmeat. For years the small company he and his wife ran with other relatives bought its crabmeat from suppliers on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

That ensured that the company stayed small. Then, at almost the same time, QVC discovered the Kauffmans and the Kauffmans discovered Asia. There couldn't have been one relationship without the other.

Global forces that brought to the United States a cousin of the Maryland blue crab--caught in the waters off Southeast Asia--have allowed the Kauffmans to sell 8 million to 10 million crab cakes annually, about 5 million of them on QVC last year. In Maryland, just under 2.5 million pounds of local crabmeat was produced last year.

"It was very gut-wrenching that we even had to go away from Maryland meat," Ron Kauffman said. "We're very proud people that love selling Maryland-style crab cakes."

But, he added, "The customers are more concerned about the quality of the product than the origin of it."

Others in the industry have long struggled with the notion that the crabmeat they sell is not fresh domestic blue crab but something called blue swimming crab caught in Southeast Asia and pasteurized for the long journey to America.

When Miami-based John Keeler & Co. began selling Asian crab a decade ago, "it was comical," said spokesman Steve Harmell. "We had to literally give our product away. We had to beg people to try it. `Are you kidding me? Blue crabmeat from Thailand?"' Now its Blue Star brand is a top seller.

The strategy has been to play down where the crab comes from. Still, the information often is there. Small print on most cans and tubs of crabmeat names its country of origin. Somewhere on most boxes of crab cakes in supermarket freezers, the source is divulged.

In 2002, Bethesda-based Made in the USA Foundation sued Phillips Foods in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, claiming that it was misleading customers into believing its products were made with Maryland seafood by saying they were made in the U.S.--even though nearly all of the Baltimore company's crab comes from Asia. The lawsuit was dismissed, but Phillips packages now are clearly marked.

"Could you tell if you were blindfolded which was fresh [from Maryland] and which was from Asia? I'm not so sure," Ron Kauffman said.

"Good old boys from the Eastern Shore say there's nothing better" than local crabmeat, he said. "The numbers of how crab cakes are selling around the country--that tells you something."

[pebbles]

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Unregistered:
You got it, Pebbles! And, it's fun to see so many people familiar with little ol' Maryland! It's Springfest in Ocean City, MD this weekend, summer is almost here!
www.tvtalkshows.com/board/showpost.php?p=1495292
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Woo and Hoo. Ocean City!! We'll be there with the kids and grandkids in July. I can't wait to eat some crab imperial while sitting on a deck facing the ocean or the bay. St. Michaels also has some great restaurants that serve amazing crabcakes. Love those softshells, too.

[bookchick]

so do i!

nothing like a sandwich with LEGS hanging off the sides....

:-) bookie

[kittyinthecity]

In Charleston they have She-Crab soup. Do they make that in MD, too?

It is really good. Never could do the softshell crab sandwiches.

Something just not right about a sandwich with legs!

[LA-CAgirl3]

Another Eastern Shore devotee here! We go see the horses swim at Chincoteague (sp?) and have a fave hotel w/ pool for summer and a B & B for other times of the year. There is a small place right at a marina, just over the MD border which serves fresh (not from China) crabcakes. And I hear those and the softshells are tasty. (I take this from others as I am allergic). The Eastern Shore is so uncomplicated and prisitine in many places. I enjoy the lack of development and the small towns which do not sprawl.

Edited to add we take the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to get there from VA. Love that bridge and always stop half-way at the overlook w/ restaurant etc.

[Jasmine46]

Oh, yum. She-crab soup! We used to get that in Panama City, Florida and it was the most delicious thing I have ever tasted.

Ya'll are making me yearn for the East Coast, something I never thought I would do after being away for 30 years!

[LA-CAgirl3]

Jazz ~ I thought the world started and ended within the LA county borders! But now I love the East Coast. Everything is so close, by western standards. I can get to NYC or Miami in a i day drive or a short flight. I have def become an Easterner. Maybe like you, I should re-think my user name sometime. Hehe.

[Mandy]

We used to go boating on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland every summer for many years. Over the years we had boat slips at Kent Narrows and in Stevensville, right across the Bay from Annapolis.

Both marinas had restaurants that made excellent crab cakes. After eating them just about every summer week-end I guess I got spoiled and thought that everyone made crabcakes that good. My husband and I were extremely disappointed when we tried the ones from QVC.

Now we realize that you can only enjoy "Maryland Crabcakes" in Maryland.

[bookchick]

thanks for validating our opinions...

MD crabcakes (and VA) are fabulous

today dh and i went to a nearby crabhouse and had a dozen ginormous steamed crabs
they were excellent, and not because they were the first of the season
awesome!
we also picked up a large round Florida watermelon at a local 'sale'
i think it was a variety called "sweetheart" as good or better than mid summer ones
what an eating day we had!

bookie

[BeckyC]

I'vee never bought their crabcakes... just seemed so expensive.

Bookchick... I can't wait for some good watermelon!! That sounds so good.

[bookchick]

i was a bit skeptical when the vendor recommended the melon, but it was amazing!!

i love watermelon (really all melons) and crave it, esp. in the winter when the available ones aren't so good

dh doesn't like it, so the chickens and i share
i sit outside with them and we all pig out
they'll eat it right down to the white rind: they eat the seeds first
i assume that they think that they're BUGS!!!!

the simple things in life...

:-)
bookie

[Unregistered]

Our family has been making crab soup for years. Usually with the "jimmies", which are the male crabs. And, soft crab sandwiches, I have to laugh when people see them who have never seen them before and realize that you eat the legs too! It is an aquired taste. Did you ever hear the old one about how you tell a male crab from a female crab? The male crab has the Washington Monument on its back and the female has the Capital on its back. And, it really does look like that. When I was little and would go out with Dad on the boat, he taught me how to see this and to only keep the males. It's such a shame now, 40 years later that so much pollution has hurt the Chesapeake Bay and all the seafood. Not nearly as much as it used to be.
Isn't the Bay Bridge Tunnel in VA cool?? I love going down in those tunnels. I guess I'm strange! I have relatives in Willliamsburg, VA, so we use the tunnel a lot.
For those of you vacationing in Ocean City, MD this summer, hope you have a grand time! I crave those Thrasher French Fries that are on the boardwalk every year!