You know the old observation that dog owners begin to look like their dogs as they age? The same might be said of Maine lobstermen, who are backed into a really tight spot and are waving threatening pincher and crusher claws at anyone who gets too close.
The summer news in Maine’s iconic lobster harbors was dominated by violence and threats of violence as the brutal effects of the global recession continue to undercut the economic fundamentals of Maine’s lobster industry. Even to speak of the “Maine lobster industry” suggests the illusion of unified recognition of the problems facing lobstermen, dealers and processors-not to mention a plan going forward-that is wholly absent in the present circumstances. The one fact that stares every lobsterman in the face is that boat prices remain at record lows-prices not seen during the last two decades. Very bad news for lobstermen; not-so bad news for dealers and good news for processors.
As the summer of our discontent draws to a close in and among the hundred some lobster harbors along the Maine coast and islands, the Task Force on the Economic Sustainability of Maine’s Lobster Industry (on which I served) sent its final report to the Governor. The report proposes a bold plan to create a new Maine Lobster Marketing Institute, modeled on the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute that has successfully branded Alaskan salmon and other seafood products of that state. The job of the Maine Lobster Marketing Institute would be to capture a bigger slice of the value inherent in Maine’s lobster brand that has eroded during the last decade when we shipped between 50-70 percent of our lobsters to Canada, whereupon our lobsters would be re-exported back into American markets either as Canadian lobsters or just generic lobster meat.
According to the task force recommendation, the Maine Lobster Marketing Institute should have a budget of $10 million, funded by a joint industry-government partnership, as was done in Alaska, to invest in marketing and branding of Maine lobsters to protect and advance the industry. Mind you, we are talking about a lobster resource worth some $250 million to lobstermen and perhaps another $500 million to dealers, processors, boat builders, trap makers, truckers, and all the other ancillary businesses that leverage off Maine’s iconic lobster resource.
To provide some perspective for the recommended multi-million dollar investment, the Maine Lobster Promotion Council this year will spend less than $400,000 to market Maine lobsters-an almost laughably inconsequential amount, given the size and value of the industry. But then for the last decade and a half most everyone in the industry was laughing-all the way to the bank while they were all making money, even if Maine’s lobsters were increasingly becoming an undifferentiated product in the marketplace.
So now we’re talking about investing real money in the Maine lobster brand-lots of money from individual lobstermen, dealers, processors and from you and me through taxpayer dollars from state and federal sources. This is where the laughing stops. Will individual lobstermen agree to tax themselves, say two or three or even five cents a pound, to fund a significant part of the annual budget of a Maine Lobster Marketing Institute? For a serious and successful lobstermen landing 40,000 pounds per year, that would be an annual investment of between $800 to $2,000 in his or her business-a whole lot of money at a time when the economic condition of lobstermen could not be worse. It’s an understatement to say this a hard sell.
Thus, the Lobster Task Force report is likely to sit on the governor’s desk until things get even worse. It’s like the old Russian folk tale: Cheer up, things could be worse; so I cheered up and sure enough, they got worse.
In the meantime, some individual lobstermen, dealers and processors are investing in their own businesses. Linda Bean, of the famed Maine-branded retailing family, has invested many millions of dollars in lobster wharves and infrastructure to launch her line of Perfect Maine Lobster Roll restaurants. In Casco Bay, a group of lobstermen launched the Calendar Islands Lobster Company to brand their locally-caught lobsters. Some Monhegan and Stonington lobstermen are considering a similar strategy. The problem, of course, is that local brands do not necessarily capture the value in the Maine brand and to the extent they are successful, they will bump into each other in the marketplace.
In any case, it appears that launching a major new lobster marketing initiative is not going to happen anytime soon.
The question is whether these uncoordinated efforts will one day lead to a larger industry response in an industry still dominated by fiercely independent actors, historically habituated to defending small territories.
Philip Conkling is the president of the Island Institute.