China’s Taste for Maine’s Lobsters
Asian Markets Over The Long Haul
The Washington Post published a story in May 2016 about the influence of enormous demand from a single market on a relatively small supply of product. That is China’s emerging “middle” class and Maine’s premier lobster. “It’s the new buying class that’s changing trade patterns throughout the world,” said Shaun Rein of the China Market Research Group.
Mark Neiman, the Cranberry Island Fishermen’s Coop manager, said their coop sells to dealers who then sell directly to Asian markets. He could not say how much of his coop’s lobster goes to China, but the demand there definitely took up some of the surplus since the 2012 lobster glut. It also propped up slumping lobster prices. Since then the Chinese economy has slowed some, but the way Asians consume lobster and how Maine prepares and ships lobster to the other side of the planet is evolving, not stopping.
The rising opportunities in Asian markets has not been lost on Matt Jacobson, head of the Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative. The boom in demand in China is tied to more than the increasingly middle class incomes there. The food culture in China is ancient. Periodic historic famines have shaped the way food security is considered. Status, associated with some foods, giving and receiving, is also a factor. That cooked lobster happens to be an important color symbolically in China is even a factor.
Demand in China is doing more than raise the boat price for lobster in Maine. The Chinese preference for live lobster is influencing the Maine lobsterman’s lobster handling practices-better health equals shipping strength and better prices in the long run. Changing Chinese consumer habits are creating markets for the plentiful early season “new shell” lobster, recently renamed to shed its former less flattering moniker, soft shell lobster.