In the midst of the worst lobster season in 20 years, a group of Casco Bay lobstermen are branding their product, launching Calendar Islands Lobster in mid-September.
Dropping Springs LLC is creating the Calendar Islands Lobster Company in order to brand and market its lobster directly to the consumer and to retailers.
The lobsters will be hand-picked by one of the 25 fishermen in the company, with additional quality control at the company’s facility at Sturdivant’s Wharf in Portland, according to John Jordan, president of Dropping Springs.
A Web site is also being created, that will include photos and profiles of all the lobstermen in the company. Calendar Islands Lobster will also be sold at a retail outlet at the company’s Portland wharf.
“What I really see is this meeting the needs of a market which is not being met yet, where people want to know where their lobsters are coming from,” Jordan said.
“We are the most interested in working with retailers who might be interested in representing a brand-which really hasn’t been done in the lobster business before,” said Jordan.
Chebeague Island lobsterman Ernie Burgess points to the organic food movement as part of the inspiration for the idea. “The whole concept of buying local is something that has caught on big here in Maine,” Burgess said. “The farmers were responding to something the people wanted,” that is, to know where their food is coming from and how it is grown.
Directly connecting lobstermen with their product makes sense, according to Burgess. “That is just a point of pride-seeing your product all the way through to the consumer, and saying that it is good stuff,” he said.
Dropping Springs worked with the Island Institute, which publishes Working Waterfront, to help develop the idea. “We felt we had a concrete vision of where we are going,” Jordan said, “and they have been helpful in providing broad-based, general support.”
The Island Institute has provided staff support for operations, has helped with design and public relations and also provided business strategy advice.
“The fishermen of the Calendar Islands Lobster Company are demonstrating an innovative vision for the lobster fishery, and the Island Institute is excited to be partnering with them to basically learn more about how this can be a model for the state as a whole,” said Rob Snyder, the Island Institute’s vice president of programs. “Our role when we see innovators like this is to get behind them and give them a chance to achieve their vision.”
As the new brand is launched, Dropping Springs does not plan to sell all its catch as Calendar Islands Lobster.
“For us, a relationship with the processors and the dealers is important,” said Jordan, of Yarmouth. “We may only move 15 percent of our lobsters through this model in the beginning.”
Dropping Springs lobstermen are mostly from Chebeague Island, although they do have members from Cliff Island, Portland and Yarmouth.
In marketing a general seafood commodity, the challenge is to take a product that may seem generic and to create a profitable brand from it. “Having the idea is the easy part,” said Dane Somers, executive director of the Maine Lobster Promotion Council. Setting up the distribution network, communicating your message to consumers and taking care of all the other details “that is where the real hard part comes in.”
Somers talked about the bottled water industry as example of successfully marketing a commodity, specifically Poland Spring water. When it comes to seafood, there has been success marketing oysters, mussels and scallops based on where these products come from.
When marketing Maine lobsters, the promotion council reminds people that lobster is caught in the wild from a clear, natural ecosystem where conservation measures are used, Somers said.
Somers said that the Calendar Islands Lobster Company seems to have a realistic approach and understands the obstacles they face in introducing this brand. “The thing that gives me confidence, is they are realistic,” he said. “I think that is an advantage, because you don’t have unrealistic expectations-they are not going to get discouraged easily.”
In times like this, “It is exciting to see a relatively small group say, ‘we’re willing to do what we think is the right thing and take control of our destiny,'” Somers said.
This new approach was one of the reasons that Jeff Putnam, of Chebeague Island, joined Dropping Springs this year. “I am into working with a company that is looking at the long term, and not just trying to get rid of today’s lobsters,” Putnam said.
David A. Tyler is editor of Working Waterfront.