March 19, 2013 — A Massachusetts law since 1997 has allowed wholesale lobster dealers to process lobsters into frozen shell-on tails for distribution outside the state, but not for in-state sale and use.
Now, a bill to eliminate the anomaly and allow Massachusetts lobsters that are processed into frozen shell-on tails and parts to be sold and used here is before the Legislature’s and Joint Natural Resources Committee. And it has the support of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, with a clear economic rationale for letting Massachusetts shell-on products to be served and eaten where they’re caught.
“It will definitely help us dealers,” said Vince Mortillaro, of Mortillaro Lobster Co., 60 Commercial St.
Gloucester is the state’s No. 1 port in lobster landings, with 3.1 million pounds worth $11.7 million in 2011. New Bedford, which dominates the scallop fishery, was second to Gloucester in lobster landings with 1.3 million pounds and $5.78 million in ex vessel value landed.
The bill would put Massachusetts on a legally level playing field with Maine, which authorized the production and in-state sale of lobster parts in 2009.
“We believe that by allowing the in-state sale of this product we can increase local demand and production and thereby improve the price per pound paid to our Massachusetts commercial lobstermen,” said William A. Adler, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association
A Dec. 31 report by the state Division of Marine Fisheries on the issue notes that the global lobster market has been moving with increasing speed in recent years away from whole live lobsters and toward processed lobster products — a trend that has been driven by the health of the stock and long-term growth and chronic surplus an in the size of the harvests. Canadian boats landings up 22 percent to 138 million pounds from 2007-2011 and domestic landings up 36 percent to 126 million pounds over the same period.
The way Canada manages its lobster stocks — based on temporal-spacial closures — opens the most productive areas in the spring and early summer, just as supply and demand in American markets are peaking, which — as in 2012 — left domestic prices very low, which was good for consumers but bad for the boats and the processors.
Read the full story from the Gloucester Times