PORTLAND, Maine — August 12, 2012 — Once caught, a lobster can change hands five to seven times before it reaches a diner's plate.
Lobstermen this summer are getting paid as little as $2 to $2.50 a pound for their catch — the lowest level in 30 years — but the price escalates to $17 a pound or higher by the time a customer orders a lobster in a restaurant.
"It depends on whose plate it's going to and where that plate is," said Stephanie Nadeau, owner of The Lobster Co., a lobster dealer in Kennebunkport. "Is it a live lobster or a frozen lobster product?"
The economics of the lobster industry have come into focus in the past week, as Canadian lobstermen set up blockades to prevent Maine lobster from being shipped to New Brunswick processors. At the heart of the matter are the low prices that lobsters have commanded this year. With processors in New Brunswick paying less for Maine-caught lobsters, Canadian lobstermen say they can't compete — and that the situation is threatening their livelihoods.
Maine, which landed 105 million pounds last year, is the nation's largest lobster producer. The state catches 75 percent to 80 percent of the American lobsters — Homarus americanus — caught in the United States, according to the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine.
Last year's catch in Maine was valued at more than $330 million at wholesale prices. But lobster's total economic impact on the state is estimated to be as much as $1.7 billion. That's because for every dollar paid to a lobsterman for a lobster, $3 to $5 is generated for related businesses such as dealers, processors, restaurants, stores, marina and bait suppliers, the Lobster Institute said.
Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald.