Several Montgomery and Prince George’s County restaurants and food retailers are among 50 in the state that can officially say they sell true Maryland blue crabs.

Shortly after Gov. Martin O’Malley announced in May that the Chesapeake Bay’s blue crab population hit a 19-year high this year, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) launched the True Blue initiative as a way to support businesses using local crabmeat.

According to the DNR website, the True Blue program provides certification to restaurants using Department-verified Maryland blue crabmeat and allows those restaurants to use a special logo in marketing their crab dishes. 

Among those that made the DNR’s recently released list of True Blue participants were the Crab Galley of Bowie and Whole Foods locations in Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Gaithersburg, Silver Spring and Rockville. 

"Customers can look at a menu and know right away that they're getting what they think they're getting," Steve Vilnit, the DNR director of fisheries marketing, said in a statement about the program.