Next: It's been a year of adaptation for Luke Holden, founder of Luke’s Lobster
Photo / Tim Greenway
Luke Holden, founder and CEO of Luke’s Lobster, operates lobster shacks and seafood processing plant, has an online seafood market and a branded grocery line.
Luke Holden, founder and CEO of Luke’s Lobster, helped the company weather the pandemic, expanded the company’s branded grocery line and created an online seafood market to help fishermen have a place to sell their harvest when the pandemic shuttered restaurants and overseas markets. He believes in paying lobstermen strong wages and helped make Luke’s Lobster a B Corp with responsibility to the community and the environment.
Mainebiz: Luke’s Lobster received its B Corp status in 2018. Why was that important to you and how do you keep it going?
Luke Holden: We were the first restaurant group to get that status. It was a challenge by the team to measure the health of the business in a new way. There’s a recertification process every three years and we’re going through that now. The challenge is to increase your score. We’ve always been a stakeholder-driven business rather than a shareholder driven business. At first the teammates really cared about the B Corp status and it became a recruiting and retention tool. Now, it’s driving customer interest as well.
MB: In response to the pandemic, you opened an online market in 2020 to keep buying from and supporting fishermen. How successful was that? Did your branded grocery line help as well?
LH: 2020 was by far the hardest personal and professional moment I’ve ever hit. The shutting down of China affected the lobster market, with a drop of 20% to 50% in prices. The pandemic hit New York City for us first. We had 500 teammates in the company. We shrunk to 23. It was miserable. We shut all but one restaurant, in Portland. That was almost 40 restaurants. And we were responsible for the landings for harvesters.
We found that there was demand through an online marketplace. The first few days of that we saw incredible sales. By no means did that take the place of the displaced revenues but it did create something positive so we could put one foot in front of the other. We reopened shacks where people wanted to and where it was safe to do so. We had landlords negotiate rents with us. We did exceptionally well with branded grocery [products]. We now have eight Luke’s branded grocery products in over 1,000 grocery stores. We didn’t envision it growing this quickly.
MB: In 2021, the pandemic is still ongoing with some pockets of normalcy. How did the company evolve this year?
LH: It’s been a challenging year. There’s been more predictability than 2020, but we’re still dealing with different political environments, different infection rates. It’s been a real challenge to keep a team together and motivated. We’ve had a hard time staying staffed. It’s been anything but a normal year.
MB: For the next year and beyond, what are your restaurant plans for the U.S. and internationally?
LH: We’re starting to be able to think a year or two out again. We’re outside of the ‘Are we going to survive’ environment. The businesses that sprung up during the pandemic — the online market and branded grocery — we have a lot to learn about. On the flip side, we took a bath on the restaurant group. In New York City alone we lost 3 to 5 shacks. That was a very significant part of our business. We would like to restore and rebuild in cities like New York and become reinvested at a lower cost. There’s a lot of exceptional locations available now at more affordable prices.
MB: In the big picture, what do you hope to do or be for the Maine seafood and business community? Have you achieved that?
LH: This is an egotistical perspective but we’re now paying fishermen in Maine more for lobster than we ever have. We’re putting more value on Maine lobster. We’re the champion brand for marketing Maine lobster. I feel great that the industry is able to pull together and make it work. It’s a big industry effort led by Luke’s Lobster to care for and care about the lobster community. There’s a great opportunity to be a leader in the global seafood world and the Maine seafood community where we’re looking at climate change and where we all work together to reduce our carbon footprint.
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