Crab meat is the edible flesh picked from the body and legs of crabs, usually white in colour, with leg meat often tinged red. In the seafood industry the term also denotes canned white crab meat, a shelf-stable product of significant trade. Fresh and pasteurized chilled crab meats are highly perishable ready-to-eat foods, so hygienic hand-picking or mechanical extraction, rapid chilling, and strict temperature control are essential. Processors monitor for Vibrio species and histamine-forming bacteria, and accurate species labelling protects against substitution fraud.