June 15, 2015 — KENNEBUNK, Maine (AP) — When Maine’s lobsters start shedding their shells, restaurant owner Steve Kingston goes to the docks with a message for lobstermen: bring ’em to me.
“They definitely have a much saltier, brinier taste,” said Kingston, who runs a Kennebunk restaurant called The Clam Shack that goes through a half-ton of lobsters per day in the summer. “We’re a softshell house.”
Kingston is among a group of people in Maine’s lifeblood seafood industry trying to make the coming season the summer of shedders. The Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative, a group funded by the state’s lobster fishermen, dealers and processors, is launching a push to re-brand recently-molted lobsters as a regional treat that deserves more attention from chefs, restaurants and vacationing tourists.
Newly-molted lobsters, sometimes called “shedders” in New England, are crustaceans that have recently grown out of their old shells. Shedders tend to cost a little less than harder or “old shell” lobsters at restaurants and lobster pounds that sell both. The collaborative is rechristening shedders as “Maine new shell lobsters” and marketing them as a unique Maine treat — sweeter in flavor than hard shell lobsters, and easier to prepare because of their tender flesh.
The push is coming partially out of necessity as Maine’s lobster industry, by far the largest in the nation, deals with a glut of product on the market in recent years that has depressed prices somewhat. Maine’s lobster catch has topped 100 million pounds for four straight years. The price per pound at the dock has fallen from $3.47 from 2007 to 2010 to $3.11 since 2011, motivating some dealers to seek new markets for lobsters.
Read the full story from the Associated Press here