Higher lobster prices are pushing American consumers toward value-added products like tails or picked meat instead of live animals, according to Andrew Daughan, the director of sales and business development for Saco, Maine, U.S.A.-based Ready Seafood.
Speaking at the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference, Daughan said with the price for live, cold-water lobster (Homarus americanus) pushing USD 10.00 (EUR 8.81) per pound, more customers are opting for tails at USD 7.00 (EUR 6.17) each.
“Counterintuitively, the higher prices are actually creating more demand for the tails [at retail],” Daughan said. “It’s the same thing on the foodservice [end] as well. With back-of-the-house labor being such a challenge, to dedicate resources to deal with a live animal [is happening less] when you can have good quality tails in the walk-in [freezer] certainly seems a lot more attractive.”
Sales of lobster tails rose 16 percent in 2021 over the year prior, even without December’s total being included in the total, as it’s still not available. In the past year, on a volume basis, sales of lobster tails surpassed live lobsters by 14.4 percent, according to data presented at the conference. And Daughan said he’s seeing lobster meat trading at the same prices as tails, as more lobster-themed foodservice concepts such as lobster roll food trucks proliferate around the U.S.
“[Meat] demand is strong [to the point where] both meat and tail prices are now going together. We have this we started seeing that a couple years ago,” he said.
Despite the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, Chinese demand for North American lobster has continued, with U.S. exports to China topping 13.2 million pounds in the first 11 months of 2021, up 6 percent year-over-year, according to the Associated Press. Daughan said there was a drop-off as tariffs were ramped up during the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump but that the 2021 U.S. lobster export total to China will approach the level seen in 2018 or 2019.
On the supply said, Daughan said he expects Maine to sport a 10 percent increase in its 2021 catch once final numbers are available, with a similar increase in Canada tends, which will match up to 2018-2019 catch levels.
“The resource is certainly very healthy,” he said.
In regard to warmwater lobster, which represents 22 percent of the U.S. lobster market, sales were up 2 percent in 2021 through November, with supply limited due to hurricanes and trading interruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Overall, Daughan proclaimed the U.S. lobster industry healthy but said there was concern about how continued high prices might impact the market.
“It's a challenge anytime you look at you look at the [pricing] graph, the overall thought is what goes up must come down, so it becomes a scary proposition,” he said. “Yet people continue to buy the product. It's in high demand and is still a loved product. People are paying the prices. There’s a perception in the industry is there’s not a lot of inventory. So we seem to be in a pretty good place, but obviously there’s a good amount of risk.”
Photo courtesy of Tara Turkington/Shutterstock
