The Maine lobster industry has survived two price crashes during the past five years—the first following the 2008 financial crisis when demand for all premium seafood collapsed and the second in 2012 following a glut of lobsters hitting the market earlier in the season than the markets could handle.
The effect of these two crashes—one from too little demand, the other from too much supply—has led to a great deal of soul-searching among lobstermen and even to unprecedented displays of concerted action.
Some lobstermen have done the unthinkable by paying dues and joining a union; others have agreed to support a license surcharge to increase the budget for marketing Maine lobsters. It will be interesting to see which approach will produce measurable results—political organization versus economic investment.
For years, the marketing of Maine lobsters was hardly necessary—after all, Maine lobsters are one of the most widely admired brands in the country and they more or less sold themselves.
True, there was a small, mostly moribund organization called the Maine Lobster Promotion Council that spent a few hundred thousand dollars per year to “market” Maine lobsters, but the effort suffered from piteously small investments and was inconsequential. To make matters worse, the promotion board was composed of industry insiders whose fundamental interests were incompatible with each other. Maine’s lobstermen want high boat prices; lobster processors who buy lobsters want low boat prices; and Maine’s lobster dealers are middlemen who primarily want a steady supply to earn their modest commissions. If you wanted to design a marketing program guaranteed not to work, you would create the old promotion council.
The new marketing program is called the Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative and the members of the new board hint at the kinds of strategies in which the group might invest its first million dollars.
The 11-member board includes two ex-officio state agency heads, including the commissioner of marine resources, along with the chief executive of the Maine Tourism Association. Then we have a Bar Harbor town councilor who helped spearhead a local effort to supply Maine lobsters to the 100 or so cruise ships that sail into that port each summer instead of relying on the Canadian lobsters they had been buying and serving.
There are also two dealers on the board, and one processor, the owner of Luke’s Lobster, a chain of lobster roll outlets that started in New York City and has now expanded to nine restaurants in four cities and employs about 100 people. Then there is a branding company owner, who is the wife a prominent lobsterman and two other lobstermen from Stonington and Tenant’s Harbor.
For the marketing collaborative to be deemed successful by lobstermen, who after all are paying the lion’s share of the bills, the so-called “boat price” of lobsters will need to increase in the next few years.
For most $300 million industries, it might not take a lot to convince its members of the need to invest one percent of their harvest in a marketing and branding effort, but don’t forget that the Maine lobster industry is made up of 5,000 hard-headed independent businessmen who don’t easily change their minds. But providentially for those who have pushed for the new organization, the marketing collaborative will be benefitting from a bit of a tailwind as lobster prices have rebounded this fall from their recent historic lows.
According to Dave Cousens, president of the Maine Lobsterman’s Association, processors this summer were not able to fill their orders with cheaper soft-shelled lobsters and consequently have had to stay in the market and compete with the live lobster market that pays more for hard-shelled lobsters. As a result of having both processors and live lobster buyers in the market at the same time, the boat prices have risen, according to Cousens, “by a dime a week” throughout most of the late summer and fall. Quite a few Maine lobstermen may be able to pay down their debts from the past several years of break-even fishing and you might even find a few of the high-liners in the Caribbean this winter.
But in the next few years, the real spectator sport from within lobstermen’s ranks will come from the push-me-pull-you between those who believe political organizing and union building will bring more benefits to lobstermen and those who believe launching a professional marketing organization is the route out of their economic squeeze. It seems to come down to whether you would rather bet on politics or economics to advance your way of life.
But don’t forget, if you ask three different lobstermen for an opinion, you are likely to get five different points of view.
Philip Conkling is the founder of the Island Institute. He now operates Conkling & Associates, a consulting firm.