From live handling to food safety: an integrative review of mud crabs and spiny lobsters

Lentera Negeri October 22, 2026 Volume 7, Number 1 1 authors

Abstract

Mud crabs (Scylla spp.) and spiny lobsters (Panulirus spp.) are premium seafood, but evidence on live handling, freshness indicators, processing, food safety, and shell utilization is rarely integrated across the postharvest chain. This critical integrative review analyzes 30 commodity-focused sources originally published between 1997 and 2026, complemented by 16 recent methodology and cross-commodity references. The underlying literature search covered PubMed, Google Scholar, publisher databases, the JPHPI portal, and reference chaining; heterogeneous outcomes were compared narratively without statistical pooling. In Scylla serrata, initial decomposition occurred after six days at 10 °C compared with three days at 25 °C. In Panulirus argus, a reflex-based mortality model reached an area under the curve of 0.897, while a separate sous-vide study reported refrigerated crab-meat shelf life beyond 60 days under defined experimental conditions. These results are study-specific, not interchangeable treatment effects or universal safety thresholds. Evidence converges on the need to link initial animal condition, transport stress, tissue-specific freshness indices, pathogen controls, process validation, and packaging. Major gaps concern the relationship between live stress and subsequent edible quality, cross-species transferability, and validation in Indonesian commercial supply chains. An integrated decision-linked framework is proposed as a testable research model, not an already validated industrial standard. Original screening-flow and inter-rater records were unavailable and are not retrospectively invented.

Authors

  1. Sucipto Sucipto

    Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Universitas Lambung Mangkurat,

Keywords

Cold chainFood safetyMud crabPostharvest processingSpiny lobster

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