Two Gulfs Crab take out top award for sustainable blue swimmer crabs - Produce Awards

Jul 07, 2023

And the result is beautifully sweet, clean-tasting, firm crab meat.

At just 20 and 23 years of age respectively, Karen and Dennis Holder set off from their home in Ceduna, South Australia, in a Ford Escort with a modest little boat and a very big plan. More than three decades later, the couple has taken that original spark and fanned it into the flame of Two Gulfs Crab – one of the most successful blue swimmer crab fishing companies in Australia.

It started with a sudden proclamation by Dennis while on a beach trip with Karen: “I want to be a crab fisherman!” The rest, as they say, is history.

Dennis grew up in a fishing family as one of four children. While he longed to join his father at sea, Dennis was the second-born boy and thus, could not fit on the tiny prawn-hauling boat with his father and older brother. A career in diesel mechanics was the fallback plan, but the siren song of the ocean continued to ring in his ears.

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Karen grew up on a generational farm in Ceduna, which gave her a deep understanding of the value of primary production. While she adored living on the land, she wanted more. And then, along came Dennis.

Entering into the fledgling commercial blue swimmer crab industry in 1980s South Australia, the Holders had a unique opportunity to create the mould and lay the groundwork for what is now a thriving luxury industry.

But along with this pioneership, the Holders recognised the responsibility they had – to take care of the ecosystem that takes care of them. Dennis and Karen passionately strive to minimise their environmental impact by moving away from diesel engine boats to hybrid motors, and have engineered purpose-built pots that allow the smallest crabs to escape while the larger crabs remain.

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Dennis has also designed a chute that releases undersized crabs and female crabs with eggs directly back into the water; the remaining crabs are sorted by hand for quality then put humanely to sleep in an onboard blast chiller. The entire process – from hauling to dispatch onboard in boiling, pure seawater – is done in a matter of minutes, reducing stress to the crustaceans and adding to the overall quality of what ends up on your plate.

And the produce speaks for itself. Caught in two pristine South Australian locations, the Spencer and St Vincent Gulfs – where vast seagrass meadows provide the ideal hunting grounds for blue swimmers – the crabs are picked by hand and never frozen. Sweet, clean-tasting, firm crab that, thanks to environmental pioneers like Karen and Dennis, we can enjoy for years to come. It is this steadfast commitment to crab-hauling the right way that has earned Two Gulfs Crabs a place as a 2023 delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards finalist.