After over a year of historically high prices that netted the lobster industry national attention – and articles questioning whether consumers could stomach USD 34.00 (EUR 33.78) for a lobster roll – the wharf price for the species has reportedly dropped all the way back down to “normal” levels and even beyond.
The price lobstermen were getting at the dock in 2021 was historically high, with fishermen in Maine getting roughly USD 8.00 (EUR 7.94) per pound and Canadian lobstermen in Newfoundland getting as much as USD 10.14 (EUR 10.07) per pound, according to the Fish Food and Allied Workers Union.
Now, fishermen in Maine are reporting they are getting as little as half the price of what they received last year – and in some cases even less than that. Despite the precipitous drop, that price is still within the norm: Fishermen in Maine, according to statistics compiled by the Maine Department of Marine Resources, got on average USD 4.05 (EUR 4.02) per pound for the entire year in 2018, which comes out to around USD 4.78 (EUR 4.75) when adjusted for inflation.
The difference this time is that input costs have gone up across the board. Prices for ultra low sulfur diesel vary from port to port, but areas like Dysart’s Great Harbor Marina in Southwest Harbor, Maine are reporting prices as high as USD 6.05 (EUR 6.01) per gallon. That’s almost double the USD 3.30 (EUR 3.28) it cost per gallon in July 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
In addition to high fuel costs, bait continues to be an issue. The herring fishery, historically a large source of bait, continues to have low quota.
The pricing pressures are compounded by the ongoing struggle over right whale regulations. New NOAA regulations changed the requirements for fishermen and instituted a ban area, but a new court ruling found that even that hasn’t gone far enough to bring the fishery into compliance with the Endangered Species Act.