This summer Maine has been dealing with a unique problem: a glut of lobsters. A record harvest this year pushed prices the lowest they've been in 30 years, and now the lobster industry, which is Maine's third-largest employer, is launching a full-blown campaign to "rebrand the lobster and convince people to eat more of it," according to Newsweek.
The Maine Lobster Promotion Council recently unanimously agreed on a $3 million national ad campaign they hope will do the same for lobster as the "Got milk?" ads did for the dairy industry. But lobster fisherman aren't convinced, and are worried about the larger problem at hand:
[Some fisherman] are concerned that the industry is facing a problem no marketing campaign could help. This year's glut was largely due to warmer weather moving up the Atlantic coast, which caused the lobsters to shed their hard shells months earlier than they normally do. This summer, that meant the harvest was huge, but what it will mean next year, or the year after that, is anybody's guess. "How is the warm water in the winter going to affect the mating habits, the physiology of the beast?" asks Robert Bayer of the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine. "Nobody knows. A change like this, it's worrisome."
Lobster Recipes from The Kitchn
• How To Crack and Eat a Whole Lobster
• Recipe: Lobster Rolls and Lobster Lessons
• Butter-Poached and Beyond: 10 Ways to Eat a Lobster
Read More: The Other Other White Meat | Newsweek via The Daily Beast
(Image: Liz Vidyarthi)
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They don't need an advertising campaign, they need the middle men (super markets and restaurants) to lower the price of lobster. They're not, and just pocketing the added profit from the low wholesale rates. Until they can some how cut out these middle men, and restore the supply/demand balance, sales are not going to improve.
ditto
Lobster prices haven't dropped at the retail level (at least where I am) so people aren't eating more lobster.
Going with the other complainants here. Supply is high yet prices aren't dropping anywhere outside of Maine. The middle men are gouging everyone.
It's possible that retailers are pocketing $$, too. I hope fishermen are getting paid decently for their hard work.
if lobster price continues to remain high, you can always try monk fish, "poor man's lobster", as a great alternative option. http://7th-taste.com/2011/03/30/journey-to-southern-portugal-algarve-seafood-stew-with-vinho-verde/
I was just in Cape Cod visiting family, and the price of lobster there was $3.99 a pound!!! That is crazy ridiculous! Then I get back home to the Midwest and it's over $13 a pound.
Still high as h*** here in the deep south! It would be cheaper to drive over to Florida and get some Rock Lobster (To heck with claw meat!)!
I paid $4.99/lb in NYC, it was a bargain, but I still hate dealing with the live lobster.
You don't have to convince me to eat more lobster. I'd like to eat so much that eventually I'd get burned out on it. But yeah, the price is impossible. Imagine if we who live in cattle country got those kind of prices for beeves on the coast.
If I could have lobster everyday, I would. But until it's the same price as chicken (and until my crazy husband actually likes seafood) I just can't do it.
Apparently there's a glut of lobster (and crab and urchin) because the cod was overfished. Something about the fact that cod is higher up on the food chain, and so the collapse of one fishery causes a glut of the next seafood down, and then that seafood gets overfished, and so the ecological disaster just keeps moving on....
It there is a glut, lower the price.It's too expensive!
I spent a week in Maine last summer and I ate one every day. I don't think I could ever get tired of lobster.
Being from the west coast, I tend to think of lobster as a fool's dungeness, so no thanks. Unfortunately crab season is closed now, but if you get a 50 dollar annual fishing/shellfish license, the value you end up getting per pound for clams, crabs, oysters and shrimp for the year is obscenely good, especially considering you will get some of the freshest, highest quality, tastiest seafood you can imagine.