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rfmcdonaldVery bad news about lobsters has come from Prince Edward Island.
Why is this bad? There's the impact of the slowdown in the lobster market on the fishers and their wider industry, true, but there's also the attempt, as detailed later in the article, to promote lobster as an everyday sort of meat. That sort of intensified demand could help kill the species, already under threat in parts of its territory. Remember what happened to the cod of the Grand Banks.
With lobster season starting in about a month, something has to be done with last year's catch. (CBC)With a glut of frozen lobster in Atlantic Canadian warehouses, federal and provincial money is being put toward a new marketing strategy to move it.
Different tactics are being considered — including branding, new exports, product development — but there is agreement that the first step will be changing people's perception of lobster as a luxury product.
A deep dive in lobster sales is being blamed on the recession. Luxuries tend to be the first to go when people tighten their food budgets, but falling prices in the wake of flagging demand mean lobster is not the splurge it once was.
West Nova MP Gregg Kerr points out lobster has recently been about the same price as bologna, although it has risen in the last couple of months.
"I think most would recognize that the food value in a live fish product is probably quite substantially more than a processed product such as bologna would be," said the Nova Scotia MP.
There is at least $30 million worth of frozen lobster in processors' freezers, mostly in P.E.I., and if it can't be moved that will make for a difficult spring lobster season, which is only just a month away.
Why is this bad? There's the impact of the slowdown in the lobster market on the fishers and their wider industry, true, but there's also the attempt, as detailed later in the article, to promote lobster as an everyday sort of meat. That sort of intensified demand could help kill the species, already under threat in parts of its territory. Remember what happened to the cod of the Grand Banks.
