Innovators of the Coast: Gina Mannarino, Green Gean's

Freeze-dried foods are increasingly common. You can buy such things as blueberries and strawberries, corn and peas, scrambled eggs and coffee, even pot roast and chili ready to reconstitute and eat.

And now you can enjoy freeze-dried green crabs.

Gina Mannarino and a selection of Maine freeze-dried strawberries. CME photo.

Gina Mannarino, founder of Green Gean's, a freeze-drying company in Old Orchard Beach, began her company with common Maine foods as a way to conserve their nutritional value and make them shelf stable. The company works collaboratively with farmers, seafood harvesters, and food producers to transform ingredients into value-added products. Green Gean's also works with Botanical Kitchen in Portland to develop recipes using clients’ freeze-dried products.

Freeze-dried foods are first frozen, then packaged and the air removed to create a vacuum. In the process up to 99% of the moisture is removed as well, reducing the threat of spoilage while retaining its flavor and texture. “That allows the product to be stored at ambient temperatures for the long term, typically five to 20 years, depending on the packaging,” Mannarino explained via email.

For many years Maine has been dealing with a burgeoning population of green crabs, an invasive species with very few predators and an insatiable appetite for soft-shelled clams. As the Gulf of Maine has warmed forming less sea ice each winter, the intertidal zone where the crabs live is no longer scoured by ice and green crabs have become a menace throughout the coast.

Enter Owls Head native John Painter. Painter likes to cook. He also operates Maine Green Crabs, a small midcoast Maine business that catches and markets green crabs.

“John reached out to me about running a series of freeze-drying trials on green crabs. The goal was to test different processing methods to see which freeze-dried the best while also considering what would make the most sense for consumers,” Mannarino said. “We experimented with raw and cooked meat, as well as whole crabs with the meat in the shell, both raw and cooked.”

Green crabs have not entered the culinary world in the U.S. largely because, unlike larger Jonah crabs, green crabs are difficult to pick. In countries such as Italy or in Asia, the crabs are considered a delicacy.

“We freeze-dried raw and cooked claw, leg, and body meat, along with pieces that were still in the shell, both raw and cooked, where the shells had been lightly cracked to make them easier to work with,” Mannarino said.

Painter evaluated the different results. He found that once the crab is freeze-dried, its meat becomes much easier to extract. That fact alone may make freeze-dried green crabs a viable commercial product.

The freeze-drying trials awakened Mannarino to the possibilities of green crab as an ingredient. “I was excited to be part of the project because as I started researching, I found a lot of inspiration from cuisines around the world where crab is prepared in ways that aren’t as common here in Maine. It really opened the door to me on how versatile green crab can be,” she said.

Painter is continuing his efforts to get the invasive crab in the minds of diners and on their plates. In August he hosted a class and dinner at the Maine Tasting Center in Wiscasset. Participants learned about the different ways to process green crabs for cooking and then enjoyed Painter’s Green Crab Paella dinner.

Painter’s freeze-dried green crabs could be one method of making money from what is still a nuisance species. Questions remain about whether enough green crab be harvested to create a value-added product and how best to market it.

“These kinds of ideas take time to develop, and starting a food business in Maine is no easy feat,” Mannarino said, “but it’s been really exciting to be a small part of the process.”