ABSTRACTSpecial and claw meat products from the blue crab produced in the commercial processing plants in North Carolina had relatively poor shelf life. These products had high initial total anaerobe and psychrotroph counts. Many of the samples were positive for presumptiveVibrio parahaemolyticus, even though many samples did not have coliforms (in 0.2g sample). The presence of presumptiveV. parahaemolyticusand high numbers of aerobic plate counts, total anaerobes and psycbrotrophs in these samples was probably from improper cooking of the raw crabs and post‐heat‐treatment contamination of the cooked crabs. The results suggested that coliforms may not be suitable to indicate proper plant sanitation and product contamination. Crab meat produced under sanitary conditions had lower numbers of total anaerobes and psychrotrophs; these products had relatively long shelf life. The results of these studies indicated that to produce products having longer shelf life the commercial plants will have to adopt proper sanitary practices. The main objective will be to prevent post‐heat‐treatment contamination to reduce the initial bacterial load in the products, especially with the anaerobes and psychr
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