Every day during crab season, Linda gets ready to go crabbing up and down the coasts of Oregon and Washington. She’s loaded up with gas, prepared for the water, and loaded with the crew. That’s right – Linda is the boat behind Linda Brand Crab. She stays docked in the coastal town of Iwaco, Wash., right across the border from Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River.

Under the leadership of John and Patricia Edwards, Linda Brand Crab sells whole crabs, crab meat, crab legs, and crab dip through its various marketing links. Aside from New Seasons Market, Linda Brand Crab is sold at 10 farmers’ markets throughout the Portland/Vancouver metro area, mail order to all 50 states, and a few other retail markets.

John says he’s got fishing “in his blood” and could never do anything else. His father was a king crab fisher in Alaska, and while John was growing up in the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland, he often fished in Crystal Springs and Johnson Creek, both within walking distance from his house. He moved to the Oregon coast to fish at 18, right out of high school, and started fishing salmon in the summer and working as a deckhand on crab boats in the winter.

Eventually, John was promoted to captain of a crab boat named Linda, then ended up buying and running it. Linda is now on her 35th season with John, and brings in between 150,000 and 300,000 pounds of crab a year, depending on weather and water quality. John, Patricia and their staff either bring the product directly to the farmers’ markets and stores they sell at, or they distribute it through Ideal Foods in Battleground, Washington.

John and Patricia have been selling through New Seasons Market for the past two seasons, with ready-to-cook whole crabs during the winter months and crab meat and other products during the off-season summer months. He keeps in close contact with Tana in our Meat and Seafood Department “a minimum of once a week.” John, Patricia and their staff also come in at least once a year to do in-store crab tastings with crab cakes or other goodies.

In the crab market, Linda Brand Crab is distinguished by the fact that a small number of people catch, cook, package, and sell the crab in a very short amount of time – keeping it fresher and more flavorful than most conventionally produced crab meat. “Our crab doesn’t sit in someone else’s warehouse,” John says. “It’s consistently fresh, good-tasting crab.”

John is also in close contact with Washington state marine biologists, who have an open invitation to come out on his crabbing trips to test shell quality and other indications of the sustainability and health of the area’s crab population. In the crab market, female crabs aren’t good enough to sell for meat, and John is very careful to throw all female crabs overboard unharmed. He also goes above and beyond, throwing overboard all smaller, younger male crabs, since they’re far more reproductively fertile and don’t taste as good as older and bigger crabs. This also secures a stronger future for the area’s population of crabs, he says.

Overall, what John and Patricia like best about the way they do business is that they are able to bring good product direct to the consumer – in some cases, selling it to them face-to-face. “I like bringing it fresh directly to the consumer,” John says. “I like bringing a product that I can be proud of and brings the consumer back.” As far as New Seasons Market goes, he says “You guys are like a glorified farmers’ market! I love all your local products. I shop there every time I’m in Portland.”

You can learn more about Linda Brand Crab at http://marketnavigators.com.