Tag Archives: Stephanie Nadeau
U.S. lobster set to feed another Chinese New Year as demand booms
The week-long holiday, commonly known as the Spring Festival or the Lunar New Year, is typically one of the busiest times for the U.S. lobster business. Appetite for the crustaceans remains strong in China this year, despite pandemic-related challenges to transportation and logistics, according to U.S. lobster industry members. “I have orders every day. Whether I can get them all on the airplanes every day becomes a question,” Bill Bruns, operations manager at The Lobster Co. >click to read< 08:16
Maine lobster industry salvaged its summer despite pandemic
The Maine lobster industry is in the midst of a multiyear boom, and fishermen have caught more than 100 million pounds (45,360,000 kilograms) for a record nine years in a row. It’s hard to guess whether they’ll reach that total again, but summer 2020 hasn’t been half bad for a season in which many fishermen expected collapse, said Kristan Porter, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. “Especially early in the season when nothing was open, no restaurants were open. We were thinking it would be a complete disaster,” Porter said. “If it stays like this, we can struggle through and have a season, and then get ready to fish next year.”>click to read< 17:03
This is ugly. Coronavirus Makes Lobsters So Cheap That Sellers Face a Fatal Blow
U.S. lobster prices have plummeted to the lowest in at least four years after the spread of the virus halted charter flights to Asia at a time when sales usually boom for Chinese New Year celebrations. The fallout has left thousands of pounds of unsold lobster flooding North American markets and squeezing U.S. businesses that were already hurting from lost sales due to China’s tariffs from its trade war with Washington. >click to read< 08:18
Some lobster exporters are feeling the Chinese tariff pinch
The lobster pipeline from Maine to China shut down on July 5, however, when China hit U.S. lobsters with a 25 percent import tax in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on imported Chinese goods. Since then, Nadeau’s business, The Lobster Co., has not sold a lobster to China, despite daily phone calls and a trip to the Pearl River Delta to visit her Chinese customers last week.,, But so far, lobstermen say they aren’t feeling the sting of Chinese tariffs. Their boat prices, which range from $3.50 to $4 a pound in different ports for shedders, are comparable to what they were getting at this time last year, they say, >click to read<21:39
Christmas tail: Europe deal could slow yuletide lobster biz
A trade deal between Canada and the European Union could amount to a lump of coal for the U.S. at Christmastime. The Christmas season is typically a busy time of year for American seafood exporters, as the type of lobster that is native to North America is popular in some European countries around the holiday. But Canada and the EU brokered a deal this year that gets rid of tariffs on Canadian lobster exports to the 28-nation bloc. Canada, the world’s other major lobstering nation, is now at an economic advantage over the U.S. Members of the U.S. lobster industry, which is based in New England, said exports to Europe have been pretty typical this year, but they’re worried about the future. click here to read the story 11:10
