Lobster now less expensive than hot dogs

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Looking for a bargain dinner? Try lobster

At a wholesale price of $2.25 lb

http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/17/news/economy/cheap_lobster_bargain.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009071809

You don't need a Ph.D. in economics to know what happens when supply is up and demand is way down. The wholesale or "boat" price of lobsters has crashed from a peak price of about $10 a pound in the winter of 2006 -- average prices in recent years have hovered around $4.50 a pound -- to a mere $2.25 today.

"We're basically off the charts historically in terms of low prices for this time of year," says John Sackton, a Lexington, Mass.-based seafood industry consultant. (While retail prices vary widely by location, stores in New England have been running specials on live lobster for as little as $5 or $6 per pound.)

Add in the high price of diesel fuel and the rising price of herring that lobstermen use as bait -- herring has doubled in price since 2007 -- and the end result has been a kind of economic Nor'easter for the Maine lobstermen.

They're now losing money on every lobster they catch.
"Put it this way -- yesterday we spent $70 on fuel, $60 on bait and came home with $70 worth of lobsters," says Sheila Dassatt, herself a fourth-generation Maine lobsterman. ("Lobster-person" has yet to catch on with Mainers, perhaps because it sounds likes a creature from a gender-neutral horror flick.)

Local experts think lobster prices are headed even lower because the peak season for lobster fishing -- mid-August through late October -- hasn't even begun. Once those late summer and fall lobsters start hitting the docks, the fear is the new supply will crash prices even further in what's already a glutted market. "I have a strong feeling you'll see prices drop another 50 cents a pound," says Edward Hennessey Jr., president of northern Maine's Machias Savings Bank.

Some lobstermen worry that wholesalers will refuse to pay any price for their catch. To some extent, it's already happening. Drive the roads of coastal Maine, and you're likely to see roadside stands where lobstermen -- fed up with what they consider lowball prices from wholesalers and processors -- try to sell their lobsters direct to consumers.