“We’re at the bottom now, we can’t go for what we’re getting now.” Frank Gotwals, Stonington fisherman and coop manager. Although his particular co-op is strong, the costs of marketing through a co-op are basically no different than going through a dealer, and negates any extra revenue fishermen might receive through cooperative pricing. ©Photo by Sam Murfitt

Large volume and low price is typical for autumn, the fishermen agreed. But last fall’s drop brought prices far below average. Last fall, half the fleet ended up sitting on their moorings because the price was so low, said Frank Gotwals of Stonington.

“We’re at the bottom now,” Gotwals said. “We can’t go for what we’re getting now.”

The fishermen agreed that lobstermen feel a responsibility to the entire community to keep the product coming in, regardless of price, because a big reason that tourists come to the Maine coast is to eat lobster. Their profession, lobstermen said, is integral to the well-being of the state’s economy and to the ability of other community sectors – such as retailers and restaurants – to offer the full “Maine experience.” The discussion, they said, is not abstract, and the ability of fishermen simply to afford to go out to work doesn’t just affect them, it affects the web of relationships that has grown from their signature product.

Fishermen are basically being asked to make an investment in their boats, gear, bait, and fuel on lower revenue in order to keep the rest of the web going, Gotwals said.

One task force member wanted to know how fishermen and dealers might forge a better relationship.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” said Carter. “If you put five fishermen in a room and told them they wouldn’t be fed until they came up with a better relationship, you’d come back in a week and they’d all be dead.”

“There’s a lot of mistrust out there,” he added.

Task force members wanted to know to what degree fishermen would be willing to change the way they operate, in order to maximize their business. In particular, they wanted to know if a cooperative model might benefit the industry by creating a means for fishermen to aggregate the product, control prices, and create branding opportunities.

Nick Lemieux of Cutler. “It’s nice to be able to go to work in the morning, work hard, and be rewarded at the end of the day.” But dealers, retailers and restaurants were getting paid far more. “We’re at the bottom of this,” he said. Lemieux is on the committee that will decide whether to accept certification after the full MSC assessment comes in. ©Photo by Sam Murfitt

Gotwals, the president of the Stonington Co-op board of directors, said that, although his particular co-op is strong, with 90 members and growing, the costs of marketing through a co-op are basically no different than going through a dealer, and negates any extra revenue fishermen might receive through cooperative pricing.

“How do you restructure an entire industry so that the dynamics of price control change?” he said. “I’d prefer to have much smaller price fluctuation through the season – as long as that price reflects the cost of doing business. But I don’t know how to move from this system to another system. There’s a lot of capital invested in the system as we have it now.”

Changing the way fishermen do business is not necessarily going to change the fishery, Carter said.

As a whole, though, the industry needs to understand what drives the market and how to improve prices, he said.

And there is some sense that harvesters might be open to some degree of operational change, he said.

One idea brought up by the task force would be to harvest by season, in order to avoid lower-value soft shell lobster.

On this idea, Carter urged caution. Restaurants during the busy tourist season can’t afford to be without lobster, he said. And soft-shells are pretty much showing up through the year, these days.

Maine Lobster Promotion Council executive director Dane Somers wanted to know if fishermen ever try to sell their product directly to restaurants and retailers in order to get the best price.

Marketing independently is grueling, Gotwals said.

“At the end of the day, you’re going to say, I just don’t have the energy,” he said.

Lemieux said that most fishermen don’t want to deal with peddling the product, especially after the long days it takes to harvest it. Lobstermen are generally not set up to handle the dealer side, either, he said; most don’t have lobster cars for storage, or suitable trucks for transportation.

Still, he said, “I think the potential is there.”

Stonington town manager Kathlee Billings-Pezaris told the task force that her town is an example of how closely intertwined the lobster industry is with the larger community.

Stonington is geographically isolated but a strong leader in the lobster industry, both in revenue and volume. And the town still has “a remarkable amount” of working waterfront. Fishing revenues are a big factor in keeping the working waterfront intact, she said.

One task force member wanted to know how fishermen and dealers might forge a better relationship. “I don’t know how to answer that,” said Carter. “If you put five fishermen in a room and told them they wouldn’t be fed until they came up with a better relationship, you’d come back in a week and they’d all be dead.” ©Photo by Sam Murfitt

Fishing is the economic engine for Stonington, and the wider community, in turn, does its share in supporting fishermen, she said. The industry is central to the town’s economic development and comprehensive planning strategies. For example, the town has provided funds for a local lobster hatchery and research center, their land use plans support fishing infrastructure and provide for expansion; the town formed a lobster working group to develop short-and long-term objectives, and the community last October held an “eat a lobster” day that sold 4,400 pounds of lobsters and became a model for other coastal communities.

Up until recently, lobstermen supplemented their incomes during the winter by going into construction. The entire town will suffer serious problems if the global economic situation is not fixed, she said.

“We’re all networked together, and we’re all going to be suffering together,” she said.

Joe Boudreau, founder and president of BioNovations Inc. in Nova Scotia, told the task force that lobster eaters are out there in the world beyond Maine, but, as fresh seafood, the product isn’t getting to that market because of transportation difficulties.

Right now, live seafood can be transported in bulk via refrigerated trailer trucks or air freight. After 12 hours, the dry air in a refrigerated truck starts to dry out live lobsters. Air freight is prohibitively expensive for the mass market, he said.

New technology from Bio- Novations could help solve the problem and expand the market, he said. The company has developed the Live Seafood Holding System, a patent-pending controlled-environment refrigerated trailer equipped with a spray system; computer-monitored water circulation, oxygen and temperature controls; waste filtration; and a warning system for the driver.

Test runs to Nova Scotia to Texas and Florida allowed 25,000 pounds of lobsters to be hauled on each trip with less than half a percentage point of mortality, he said.