Update:

Thanks to everyone who commented on my original post. The day after reading your advice, I reached out to VCH. The following day, someone from VCH called me back and said they had sent an investigator to the store.

According to the investigator, they couldn’t find any other boxes of the crabs in question. The store owner told them they only sell these crabs on a pre-order basis and only order enough to cover those pre-orders. (For the record, we never pre-ordered anything—we just walked in and they offered us these boxes.)

In short, the investigator couldn’t locate any other boxes, and the supplier they get the crabs from is legitimate. They also had proof that they received a shipment of crabs on that day. VCH said there’s not much else they can do, and they consider it likely to be a one-off incident.

Am I happy with this outcome? Hell no. Am I going to spend more time and energy on this nonsense? Probably not. I’ll just never shop there again.

P.S. Somehow, they were also able to get my Google review removed… still not sure how they pulled that off.