Lobster market rebounding

Summer season looks promising in Atlantic Canada, but COVID challenges still at play

The market for Atlantic Canadian lobster appears to have rebounded after a slump in prices last year due to COVID-19.

Across Atlantic Canada the average price paid to harvesters was around $4.50 to $5 per pound in 2020. In Newfoundland and Labrador, for instances, the prices dropped to a low of $3.71.

No one is certain how the 2021 season will play out, but the prices for the first catches may be on the high side, starting anywhere from $8 to $9 per pound.

Geoff Irvine, executive director of the Lobster Council of Canada, told SaltWire the lobster market is complex and COVID-19 is still causing some challenges.

The lobster fishery is significant for the Atlantic Canadian economy, especially for Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

About 1,000 boats chase after the lobster for the twomonth spring fishery, said Ian MacPherson, executive director of the Prince Edward Island Fishermen’s Association. Another 250 fish lobster in the fall, he told SaltWire.

Last year, they landed about 30 million pounds of lobster.

That fed about a dozen processing plants on the Island, providing jobs for 2,000 people.

The lobster fishery also created

work in New Brunswick, since about 35 per cent of the catch went to processing plants in that province last year.

Jerry Gavin, executive director of the P.E.I. Seafood Processors Association, told SaltWire some of the challenges around COVID-19 last season — retooling plants with protective barriers, sourcing personal protective equipment for workers and challenges around labour when temporary foreign workers were unable to get to P.E.I. — meant some of the processors could not handle all the lobsters.

So some of the catch went to other provinces.

Gavin said this year everything is in order for a smoother start for processing operations.

“Most temporary foreign workers are in place, employees are getting vaccinated and the markets are looking pretty good,” he said recently.

In P.E.I., he added, about 65 per cent of the summer lobster catch is processed as a value-added “frozen in shell” product.

Fourteen per cent is processed as meat and tails, he said, and only 12 per cent is shipped out as “live” lobster. Those numbers are true for most of the lobster exported from across Atlantic Canada, added Irvine.

“The bulk of it — 55 to 60 per cent — goes into valueadded processing,” he said.

Besides, he added, in this time of COVID-19 there are “huge issues” around shipping live lobsters.

With a decrease in the number of routine cargo flights, processors have had to hire charters to get live product to their markets, and charter flights are more expensive.

“There are significant shipping and logistics issues overall,” he said. “Ocean freight rates have gone through the roof and new COVID regulations for imports into China — one of the major markets for Atlantic lobsters — have created uncertainties.”

Labour also continues to be a challenge, since many processors depend on temporary foreign workers from regions like Mexico.

In addition to the extra cost of paying for charter flights, there’s also the cost of the two-week quarantine period for each worker.

It adds to the challenge, said Irvine.

Still, he said, the beginning of the 2021 season is off to a dramatically better start than the 2020 season.