Tag Archives: Direct-to-consumer sales

Despite an uncertain start to the fishery’s season, Maine lobster rolls on as the industry pivoted to new markets

Stonington lobster fisherman John Williams usually hauls his boat out in February for annual maintenance and paint in preparation for the start of the spring fishing season. “Then COVID started,”  The health emergency was worsening and the economy shutting down. That included one of the lobster industry’s biggest markets — restaurants. The large cruise ship and casino markets also slammed shut. International freight and shipping to China, emerging as a large consumer of lobster, had nearly stopped. “I got thinking about it and said, ‘This doesn’t look very good. We won’t have any market,’” Williams says. >click to read<  10:31

Staying Afloat: Fishermen cast for new customers amid coronavirus pandemic

The Massachusetts’ commercial fishing industry is finding new ways to stay afloat as the coronavirus pandemic has shuttered restaurants and halted seafood shipments, shaking up the normal course of business and leaving fishermen looking for customers to buy their seafood. “We had a wholesale business and like the stock market, we were up, up, up and dependable — and then all of a sudden it went away,” said Nick Giacalone,,,  Restaurant closures amid the pandemic and the grounding of hundreds of planes that typically carry local seafood to overseas markets have decimated the demand globally and threatened to send prices crashing. It’s a sobering reality that has led many fishermen and related industries to tap an obvious but previously neglected market: Direct-to-consumer sales. >click to read< 07:28