July 18, 2012 — With lobstermen complaining about their earnings, markups by dealers and retailers are getting more attention.
By the time that lobster gets to your plate, several people have already taken a nibble.
Lobstermen, wholesale dealers and retailers all get a cut of the final price as the state's iconic seafood moves from a trap at the bottom of the Gulf of Maine to the dock and then into a retailer's lobster tank.
With lobstermen complaining that what they're being paid doesn't even cover their costs, these markups are getting attention
Retail prices over the past few weeks have generally reflected a regional glut of soft-shell lobsters — the cheapest kind because they tend to have less meat than hard-shell lobsters. Calls to several Greater Portland lobster retailers revealed a range of prices, from $3.99 a pound at Fishermen's Net in Portland to $8.98 a pound at Walmart in Scarborough.
But lobstermen say they're getting as little as $2 a pound dockside, although Robert Bayer, the head of the University of Maine's Lobster Institute, said it's probably more like $2.50 to $2.75 a pound.
Dane Somers, executive director of the Maine Lobster Promotion Council, said moving lobster from the ocean to the dinner table is pretty straightforward locally. The lobstermen sell to a wholesale dealer, who sometimes sells to a second dealer, who sells to a retailer.
People in the industry are reluctant to talk about anything other than retail prices. Wholesale dealers say they get a pretty standard cut that doesn't change as retail prices rise and fall. Retailers say they only charge what the market will bear.
Bayer said that each dealer typically adds 50 cents a pound. The retailer's markup is usually an additional 50 cents to $1 a pound, he said, although the prices being charged by some retailers suggest they have been adding more recently.
Given the market glut, those margins are probably less now, Bayer said.
"There's always wiggle room if you've got product you want to move," he said, especially if the product can only last a few days in a tank before it's worthless.
Read the full story in the Portland Press Herald