Jump in domestic lobster processing could drop prices
As Maine and New England become home to more lobster processing facilities with each passing year, consumers of the crustacean could see dropping prices as lobstermen are increasingly selling their hauls to local processing facilities than to facilities located in Canada’s Maritime Provinces.
The potential drop in prices by selling lobsters to local processing facilities is due to the comparatively high costs of shipping the crustacean to locations outside of New England, a cost that has traditionally been passed on to consumers, according to The Boston Globe.
The growth of local processing facilities is also important to the branding of processed lobster products, as branding them as local to New England could be a selling point to consumers.
Industry analysts also attribute the drop in lobster exports to Canadian facilities to other factors, including the recent record-setting hauls and the weak Canadian dollar.
Maine has seen a recent boom in growth for lobster processing facilities. In 2010 the state was home to only five companies and as of 2013 that has tripled. Some 20 million pounds of meat was processed that year. Nationally, America exported about 69 million pounds of lobster to Canada in 2014, but according to federal data, that had dropped to 67 million pounds in 2015.
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