Clayton Crabpickers Like the old days, watermen still pull up to the docks at J. M. Clayton’s and sell their daily catches directly to the packing house where crabs are cooked, picked, processed, and packaged for shipping. While still housed in many of the original buildings, Clayton’s has totally upgraded our facility and leads the industry in modern techniques and innovations.

Modern methods of processing, preparing, and refrigerating crabmeat allow it to remain fresh for days. The J. M. Clayton Company packages and ships approximately 30,000 pounds of crabs and crabmeat each day during peak season, from April through November. Many are trucked fresh to the Western Shore of the Bay, others are packed in ice and flown across country to aficionados yearning for the sweet taste of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs.

Seafood experts consider Maryland to have the most educated and the most spoiled palettes in the world when it comes to the quality and taste of crabmeat. It has been a well established fact that crabmeat processed with crabs from the Chesapeake Bay is the most flavorful and sweetest available, hands down. For five generations, the J. M. Clayton Company has been supplying its famous Epicure Crabmeat to Maryland retailers and restaurants. One of these is the Hyatt Regency Resort Chesapeake Bay in Cambridge, whose success and goal has been to share the true treasures of Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay with its valued guests.

Quality Control
We pride ourselves on extensive efforts at quality control:

	Computerized temperature control with monitoring alarms for refrigeration, freezing, cooking, and pasteurizing
	Regular can teardowns to ensure proper seam specifications and profiles
	Continued process evaluation
	Modern HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) seafood inspection plan
	Quality product grading
	Routine quality and boning checks for tolerances

Professional Affiliations
The J. M. Clayton Company is actively involved in many prestigious organizations:

	USA American Blue Crab Association, Board Member
	National Blue Crab Industries Association, Board Member (J. Clayton Brooks was co-founder and the first president)
	National Fisheries Institute (NFI)
	Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, Board Member (former president and chairman)
	Maryland Tidal Fish Advisory Committee, Committee Member
	Maryland Seafood Marketing Advisory Committee, Committee Member
	Dorchester Chamber of Commerce, past Board Member and president
	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Blue Crab Task Force, Board Member
	Save Small Business, Vice President

USA American Blue Crab Association, Board Member

Call 1-800-652-6931 to order.