PORTLAND, Maine: Lobster lovers are used to adjusting to high prices, but this winter, they are shelling out even more for the cherished crustaceans because of a lack of catch off of New England and Canada and heavy exports to China.
Winter is typically a slow season for US lobster fishermen and an active one off Atlantic Canada. But catch is slow in both countries this year, in part because of bad weather, industry sources said. And the winter months are also an important time for exports to lobster-crazy China, which celebrates its New Year holiday Jan. 28. It is increasingly popular to celebrate the Chinese New Year with American lobster. That is causing demand at a time when supply is low.
American consumers who were paying $9 to $11 per pound for a live lobster in September — already higher than the previous year — are now sometimes paying upward of $13 per pound. There are enough lobsters to go around, but China’s demand is likely to only grow, said Bill Bruns, operations manager at The Lobster Company of Arundel, Maine. “They are building infrastructure to meet more demand,” Bruns said, who added that China’s middle class “has not stopped growing, and they keep eating.”
American lobster exports to China have topped 12 million pounds and $85 million in value for three years in a row. The country imported a fraction of that amount as recently as 2010, when it imported less than a million pounds of the crustaceans.
Meanwhile, prices charged by wholesalers in the US are rising, too. The loss of fishing days due to bad weather off Canada has caused a supply issue at a busy time of the year, said market analyst John Sackton, who publishes a website called SeafoodNews.com.
“It has become very difficult to get supply and you still have people scrambling to ship lobsters to China for Chinese New Year,” he said.
Lobster prices high as catch drops, China imports climb
Lobster prices high as catch drops, China imports climb
